Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRY

Regional Policy

Mr. Ashley: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he is satisfied with the operation of his regional policy.

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Alan Williams): Yes, Sir. Regional policy has proved itself to be an effective instrument for tackling the problems of structural unemployment in the assisted areas.

Mr. Ashley: Does my hon. Friend realise that he caused great resentment by his attempt to dissuade Staffordshire from seeking investment abroad? North Staffordshire has special problems of economic development for which Government assistance is required. If that assistance is not forthcoming, it must feel free to look to other quarters for investment.

Mr. Williams: I am surprised that it causes resentment because, as I pointed out, in cost benefit terms it seems bettter to concentrate expenditure—especially at a time of public expenditure constraint—on promotional work within this country rather than abroad. The Department's experience is that areas get better results from such expenditure in this country, and that was the advice that was given. The regions were not instructed.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: Will the Minister publish the letter which was sent to him by the Chairman of the North Staffordshire Development Association saying what success it had had, and will he apologise to the association for one of the stupidest comments ever made by any Minister in this Parliament?

Mr. Williams: I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should take such a peculiar line and get so heated about it. All I said was that, when hon. Members on both sides of the House are asking for good value for public expenditure, it is better to spend money in this country than abroad, and that is what our experience shows. But the decision is left to the regions. I do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman is so irritable—I must put it down to the temperature.

Mr. Madden: Does my hon. Friend agree that our regional policy needs to be more selective and that in giving assistance account should be taken of


factors other than unemployment, including the migration of population and the decline of traditional industries such as the textile industry? Does my hon. Friend also agree that the National Enterprise Board should have a more positive role in regional policy, particularly in the creation of new areas of economic activity within the regions?

Mr. Williams: My hon. Friend is correct in saying that there is no single objective for regional policy. Unemployment is the most obvious criterion by which need is judged, but it is not the sole criterion used by the Government. At different times other objectives could be even more important than the employment objective. Hon. Members will recognise that, in the present context of recessional unemployment superimposed on structural unemployment, the Government's policy has to be to eliminate the unemployment problem.

Mr. Tom King: In considering a more selective approach to regional assistance, the Public Expenditure White Paper stated that the regional employment premium was under review. Is the purpose of the review to consider a more selective application of the regional employment premium?

Mr. Williams: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that that supplementary question is for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. I shall draw it to his attention.

Aircraft Industry

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for Industry under what legislative powers Concorde is funded; whether these powers have altered since 1962; and to what extent the Government's powers to effect intervention in the aircraft industry have increased during the same period.

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Gerald Kaufman): From 1962 to 1968 Concorde was funded under the Civil Aviation Act 1949. Since 1968 Concorde has also been funded under the Industrial Expansion Act 1968, later amended by the Concorde Aircraft Act 1973. Apart from these Acts, no Government have needed to take additional powers during this period specifically to intervene in the aircraft industry.

Mr. Adley: Is it not clear from that answer that the Government have ample powers to fund the research and development and production of new aircraft? Is it not, therefore, a gross deception on the part of the Minister to pretend that he needs to nationalise the aircraft industry to create new jobs? Will he stop going round the country telling people that they cannot have jobs in the aircraft industry unless he nationalises it?

Mr. Kaufman: Of course, the Government have ample power to pour money into private enterprise. We have all the power we need to make donations to private enterprise, which abuses us for giving it money. I realise why the hon. Gentleman is so upset. He was at the British Aircraft Corporation factory at Hurn when the chairman of the joint shop stewards read out a statement denouncing the Opposition for their disgraceful tactics on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.

Mr. Blaker: Does the Minister recall that I sent him a petition signed by more than 50 per cent. of the total personnel of BAC Warton opposing nationalisation? Does not that suggest that the workers in the industry are less than enthusiastic for the Government's policy?

Mr. Kaufman: The interesting thing about the petition which the hon. Gentleman sent to me is that the proportion of the support he claimed did not tally with the actual employees of BAC, so it was a little difficult to understand the basis of the petition. When I went to BAC factories at Warton, Samlesbury, Hum, Filton and other places, all the workers' representatives were unanimous in support of nationalisation.

Mr. Watt: Does the Minister of State agree that the Government are deliberately starving Scottish Aviation of orders? Why not order aircraft from that company to meet the needs of the Ministry of Defence in patrolling our fishing limits?

Mr. Kaufman: When I visited Scottish Aviation at Prestwick recently, I had discussions with the workers' representatives. They expressed their full support for the Government's policy. They have been particularly ready to support the actions that I have taken. I have taken a great deal of time in getting Jetstreams into Scottish Aviation in order to help


the company with its programme, and the workers' representatives have expressed their appreciation of that.

Mr. Warren: Why, in the two years that the Government have been in power, have they not funded any new projects under the Civil Aviation Act 1949 as they are responsible for doing?

Mr. Kaufman: The reason is that the enterprising private sector has not brought forward any new projects for our consideration. I could ask the Conservatives why in their period of office the only aircraft that was launched was the SB330, which came from a nationalised company.

Investment

Mr. Crouch: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what further measures he is considering to promote investment in and by manufacturing industry.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Eric G. Varley): I shall take every opportunity to encourage investment by whatever means are appropriate.

Mr. Crouch: Does the Secretary of State agree that while we have made progress in reducing inflation to 18 per cent. in the last 12 months, we have succeeded in increasing industrial investment by only 1 per cent.? Does he not agree that the time has come to restore a higher level of profitability to industry so as to encourage greater investment?

Mr. Varley: Profitability is certainly important in creating confidence in industry. I cannot anticipate the Price Code which will be published by my right hon. Friend later this week. I should have thought that real progress had been made in breaking the back of inflation. The recently negotiated pay agreement, which was practically unanimously endorsed by the trade unions at their special congress, has helped to improve the climate. Recent surveys have shown that confidence is building up in industry. The Department's own survey anticipates investment increasing by 15 per cent. next year over this year.

Mr. Ronald Atkins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this country has been suffering from a lack of investment since 1900? Our ever-worsening position has been hurting the country so much that we

have turned to public investment. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is why, among other reasons, the National Enterprise Board has been set up to ensure that investment goes into the right areas?

Mr. Varley: The NEB is certainly playing its part, but we have other legislative instruments to use to help promote investment where appropriate. We have Sections 7 and 8 of the good old Tory Industry Act 1972. We have used that extensively for the last two and a half years, particularly to improve investment in the motor car industry, although the Conservatives, of course, voted against that aspect.

Mr. Nelson: Since the Minister thinks that the NEB is doing so well, the House will be interested to know what response he would make to the severe criticisms of the guidelines of the NEB that were made by the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the Public Accounts Committee. Will he take this opportunity to refute any suggestion that substantially larger amounts of funding should be available to the board, as the Labour Party's home policy committee has proposed?

Mr. Varley: I will not refute that because I am interested in ensuring that the board should have adequate funds to invest in what we have described as the profitable sector of British industry. We shall continue to make funds available to the NEB.

Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if there is a retreat on the Price Code, and if that goes too far, there will be a great deal of resentment, particularly in view of the decision of the TUC on wages agreement? Are there any guarantees that the extra profits available will be used for investment and not for other purposes?

Mr. Varley: I cannot anticipate the consultative document which will be produced later this week, but I agree with my hon. Friend. If the Price Code were to be abandoned now, there would be very serious repercussions. The Government have maintained over the last few months that price control will remain.

Mr. Heseltine: Will the right hon. Gentleman now confirm that the level of


industrial manufacturing investment is lower than in any year during the last Conservative Government? What does he think will be the effect on investment programmes of the 2½ per cent. increase in bank lending rates?

Mr. Varley: The current low level of investment which has been taking place for the last two years reflects, and has reflected, the world economic situation. I have given figures to show that investment intentions are improving, and we shall have to wait and see how these turn out.

Chrysler United Kingdom Ltd.

Mr. Moonman: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what recent consultations he has had with the board of Chrysler United Kingdom Limited.

Mr. Varley: My Department is involved in continuing discussions with members of the Board of Chrysler United Kingdom. I shall myself meet the chairman of the company at appropriate intervals to discuss progress.

Mr. Moonman: Have the Government been thrown off course in their long-term strategy with the company by the fact that half the components it uses will not be manufactured in this country for at least another nine months, thereby encouraging a large import bill in connection with the Alpine?

Mr. Varley: The Alpine is only a part of the operations of Chrysler United Kingdom. The company intends to build up production over a period and to manufacture all components for that car in this country. I shall certainly be encouraging it to do so.

Mr. Hal Miller: Will the Secretary of State say whether, in his Department's frequent consultations with the company, the company has raised the idea of scrapping the road fund licence and increasing the duty on petrol, and the effect that this would have on sales of British-made cars?

Mr. Varley: I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said during his Budget speech. The abolition of the vehicle excise duty was considered at that time and rejected.

Mr. Clemitson: Will my right hon. Friend use his good offices to ensure that the commercial division of Chrysler, which everyone has always acknowledged to be a viable part of the enterprise, gets essential components, in particular at present the frames and other similar components from Rubery Owen and—this is a longer-term problem—adequate supplies of diesel engines from Perkins?

Mr. Varley: I do not have detailed information on the points raised by my hon. Friend, but I will see that his comments are passed to the company.

Mr. Litterick: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that his Department is sufficiently well staffed effectively to monitor the details of the operations of companies like Chrysler into which large sums of public money are invested to ensure that the investment is in British productive resources?

Mr. Varley: We get monthly and quarterly information about Chrysler within the Department. The monitoring is assisted by Coopers and Lybrand. The information provides data on sales, production, exports, capital expenditure and financial performance necessary to enable the Government to follow Chrysler's progress. If additional information is required, I shall see that we obtain it.

Mr. Tom King: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) concerning his Department's assessment of the impact on likely investment of the 2½ per cent. increase in borrowing rates? What modifications has the Department made also in its assessments following the change in the exchange rate, and particularly the effect that that will have on the sourcing of components, in connection with Chrysler and the Iranian contract?

Mr. Varley: I cannot answer those questions without notice.

Scottish Development Agency

Mr. Crawford: asked the Secretary of State for Industry when he next proposes to meet the Chairman of the Scottish Development Agency.

Mr. Alan Williams: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland


is in close touch with the agency. I shall be glad to meet the chairman if the Secretary of State thinks that it would be useful for me to do so.

Mr. Crawford: In view of the reports that the budget of the NEB is to be considerably increased, will the hon. Gentleman seek approval for the budget of the Scottish Development Agency to be increased to £300 million annually? Does he not agree that oniy a sum of this magnitude can possibly help to regenerate Scottish industry and Scottish shipbuilding in particular? Will he give a copper-bottomed guarantee that there will be no Scottish shipyard closures as a result of shipbuilding nationalisation?

Mr. Williams: I am afraid that I cannot give such assurances on either of the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised.

Mr. Buchan: If and when my hon. Friend meets the Chairman of the SDA, will he remind him of the problem that we had in getting the Bill setting up that body through the Scottish Committee because of the opposition of SNP Members, and particularly their rejection of the elements that gave it teeth? Furthermore, will he keep in mind the fact that we may well see the same reaction and behaviour from SNP Members in relation to shop stewards as we saw from them on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill?

Mr. Williams: I am sure that those working and those hoping to remain working in the shipbuilding industry in Scotland will have noted the mischievous and harmful activities of the SNP.

Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill

Mr. Canavan: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he will make a further statement about the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.

Mr. Varley: It is the Government's firm intention to obtain Royal Assent this Session.

Mr. Canavan: As shop stewards from Scottish shipyards are reported to be meeting the SNP today to urge its Members to support the Government on the Bill tomorrow night, does my right hon. Friend agree that the SNP Members would be well advised to follow that advice in order to make atonement for their previous folly of voting against the Bill?

Otherwise, Scottish workers will see through the sham patriotism of the SNP and recognise it for what it is—a party of quislings.

Mr. Varley: I very much hope that the SNP will realise how serious the situation in the shipbuilding industry is. When the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford) asked a supplementary question a moment ago, I thought he knew how serious the situation in that industry is. I hope that SNP Members will take no action at all which will frustrate public ownership.

Mrs. Bain: Will the Minister accept that if he were to nationalise the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) we would accept that as the Government recognising one of Scotland's liabilities? More seriously, will he remember that, using the Scottish steel industry as an example, nationalisation, under London-based management, has meant decimation of industry, and will he remember that the people of Scotland, particularly in the West, have had no assurances given by the Secretary of State that no shipyards would be closed in Scotland?

Mr. Varley: If the steel industry had not been nationalised, I do not know what would have happened to the steel industry in Scotland. I do not know what would have happened without the public money that has been pumped into that industry.
As regards the shipbuilding industry, I ought to send the hon. Lady a list of the items of public money that have already gone into the Scottish shipbuilding industry. For example, I do not think that the Govan yard would have order prospects to the extent that it has without assistance being given to it by the Government.

Mr. Bryan Davies: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the whole country wants an end to the confusion and uncertainty created by the hiatus over the passage of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill? Does he accept that the degree of confusion on the Opposition Benches is so great that I understand that several Opposition Members have booked summer cruises on oil rigs?

Mr. Varley: I know for certain that managers and workers within the industry


—I emphasise "managers", if that will have any impact on the Tory Party—have said that they want an end to the uncertainty that exists, and by no means do the managers in the industry want to see the industry stay in private hands.

Mr. Heseltine: Of course the uncertainty should be brought to an end, but does not the Secretary of State agree that the quickest and cheapest way of doing so would be to drop the Bill that is before the House? Will the right hon. Gentleman now understand that, if his recent speeches in which he anticipated widespread unemployment as a consequence of nationalisation had been made at the time the Bill was first introduced, that would have done a great deal to diminish the enthusiasm of the left wing of the Labour Party for it?

Mr. Varley: Most of that was a total distortion of what I have been saying over the last few months. We have made no secret of the fact that shipbuilding is one of the most serious problems facing the Government. We are certain about one thing: if we are to overcome the formidable problems facing the industry, it will be done only on the basis of public ownership. But the Tory Party does not have a policy on shipbuilding at all. The only thing that Tory Members do is make irrelevant and mischievous comments, as typified by the hon. Gentleman's latest intervention. All those who work in the industry are fed to the teeth with Tory Members' silly little procedural games.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: We shall be debating this matter tomorrow.

Steel (Underwater Pipe)

Mr. Ronald Akins: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what is the present capacity of the British steel industry for producing underwater pipes; what proportion of the home market it satisfies; and what plans he has to increase this capacity.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Les Huckfield): British producers supplied some 20 per cent. of the underwater pipes required for the United Kingdom offshore market up to 1974. Submarine pipeline for current

North Sea developments has to be laid at considerable depths and United Kingdom steel producers do not have facilities to make pipe to the required specification. The British Steel Corporation is keeping under review the economic case for enhancing its 44-inch pipe mill at Hartlepool to make suitable pipe.

Mr. Atkins: I accept that the present very low capacity is due to decisions taken without enterprise many years ago. Nevertheless, will my hon. Friend assure us that he will not simply leave the matter as a question which is being kept under review by the Steel Board, nor be inhibited too much by questions of day-to-day management, in order to ensure that there is good management in the future and that we shall have the capacity of supplying our own pipes to our own oilfields?

Mr. Huckfield: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about investment decisions taken in the past. I hope he will take comfort from the fact that the BSC is actively considering enhancement of its capability at Hartlepool. It has also made submissions about future plate mill development.

Mr. Michael Marshall: Is the Minister aware that the lack of capacity is not confined only to the question of pipes and that the same situation applies in steel sheet, of which over 1 million tonnes was imported last year? Is he further aware that this situation stems not from the past but from the delay in reaching a decision on Port Talbot, which is vastly overdue after 18 months?

Mr. Huckfield: The hon. Gentleman seems to have the figures a little wrong. If he looks at the whole North Sea market, he will find that the BSC is supplying the whole market for sections, supplying 70 per cent. of the market for plate and supplying the bulk of the pipe for the landlines required. In total, the bulk of the well casing requirements for North Sea oil have been supplied by British Steel, and half of the steel required for production platforms. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the total market in the North Sea, he will see that the BSC has not done half as badly as he has been suggesting.

Company Cars (Taxation)

Mr. Hal Miller: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what is his estimate of the effect on production and sale of British-made cars of the Chancellor's proposals to tax company cars.

Mr. Alan Williams: Our consultations are still continuing and we are considering the effects on the industry in the light of the representations received from it.

Mr. Miller: Will the Minister confirm, however, that company cars account for between 55 per cent. and 60 per cent. of British registrations and that about 85 per cent. of those are home-produced cars? Therefore, anything which affects this sector badly is likely to mean an increase in imports, which are at present mostly in the private sector.

Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman is right in assessing the magnitude of company sales concerning the motor industry. It is for this reason that we have been having meaningful and valuable consultations on the effect of any possible distortion that could be the outcome of going ahead with the scheme in precisely its present form. As the hon. Gentleman and the House are aware, the Treasury has given an assurance that will look at the scales and levels for individual cars and will consider reviewing these if it is necessary to do so.

Small Businesses

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will now bring forward measures to alleviate the problems faced by small businesses.

Mr. Alan Williams: I would refer the hon. Member to the measures announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget Statement and by my predecessor on 14th April in reply to a Quesion by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson).

Mr. Rost: When will the Government recognise that there is enough vigour and entrepreneurial enterprise in our small companies to make a much bigger contribution to the economy and to solving the unemployment problem if only the

Government would provide the right incentives, or at leeast remove some of the disincentives? When will the Government provide the means to develop this real potential?

Mr. Williams: This mock indignation comes ill from Conservative Members, who could have done much more if they had wanted to do so during their period of office. I remember that when I used to speak on this very subject from the Opposition Front Bench I used to ask them to do more. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made alterations in corporation tax and capital transfer tax. We have set up a counselling arrangement on a pilot basis, and we are encouraging feasibility studies to see how far co-operative ventures in the provision of joint service can be undertaken. In fact, we have initiated a large number of measures specifically to help this sector, measures that Conservative Members did not consider.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the safeguards required is to deal with asset strippers? These companies move in and take over small companies producing efficiently and providing employment. They move in to get as much out of them as possible at at the expense of the workers in those companies.

Mr. Williams: That is a different aspect of the problem. My hon. Friend is right. The last thing that we want to see is a return to the predatory mergers and takeovers that we had on previous occasions when firms were taken over and milked dry and then both they and their employees cast aside.

Mr. Anthony Grant: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of the biggest predators of the small firms is the Government themselves? Is he further aware that one of the biggest problems from which small companies suffer is the burden of form-filling? Last year his Department alone put out more than 500,000 forms on 25 different subjects. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that all this form-filling and information collecting is necessary? Will he initiate a review throughout the whole of the Government to see whether this plethora of paper can be eliminated?

Mr. Williams: I remember that when we were discussing the Bolton Report and the hon. Gentleman was replying from this Front Bench to the debate I said that all the savings they had made, or were purported to have made, in improving the statistical requirement on small firms were wiped out by the voluntary introduction of VAT by the Conservative Government way in advance of any Common Market commitment.

Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman suggests that the Conservative Party did not do enough. Does he realise that we did not then have the highest rate of unemployment for a decade and the lowest level of investment for a decade? Will he now answer one question that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State refused to answer? Will he tell us what impact the additional 2½ per cent. on bank borrowing in the last few weeks to sustain the present level of public expenditure has had on investment in small businesses?

Mr. Williams: I find it a matter of sadness that the official spokesman for the Conservative Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."]. I shall answer it in my own way. I shall not be beaten over the head verbally or in any other way by the hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman does not want an answer, he need not have one.

Bristol Channel Ship Repairers

Mr. Dykes: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what plans he has to meet the management and employees of Bristol Channel Ship Repairers, following their latest representations in favour of remaining in private ownership.

Mr. Varley: Arrangements are in hand for a ministerial meeting with Bristol Channel Ship Repairers to discuss the company's interest in the Greenwell Ship-repair Yard. This meeting will not, however, deal with the Government's public ownership proposals.

Mr. Dykes: That is precisely the point. Can the right hon. Gentleman now say, slowly and carefully, why he and his predecessor have been so unsure of their opinion that they have refused 18 times to receive this company to discuss specifically the case against public ownership?

Mr. Varley: I deny that the company has not been seen. In March last year my noble Friend had separate meetings with the management and the work force of Bristol Channel Ship Repairers, and all the company's many letters and other communications have been dealt with fully and courteously.

Mr. Cryer: Does my right hon. Friend have an estimate of the amount of money spent by International Youth Services on the promotion of Bristol Channel Ship Repairers? Can he say whether that service is an accredited news agency, or just a front for Bristol Channel Ship Repairers, prepared to spend huge amounts of money on putting its case in various ways? Does my right hon. Friend agree that this sort of activity should be registered so that we know precisely from where the lobbying is coming?

Mr. Varley: I cannot answer in any detail the considerable question raised by my hon. Friend, but somebody ought to do some research into the subject.

Mr. Wigley: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he regards Bristol Channel Ship Repairers as one of the commanding heights of the economy, or whether the proposals to nationalise this company are a vindictive reaction to the advertising campaign? Can he confirm that there will be a retention of at least the same number of jobs in Wales when this company is nationalised, or an increase?

Mr. Varley: There are no plans to close Bristol Channel Ship Repairers, or anything like that. I refute the suggestion that this is some kind of vindictive campaign. Our proposals were made clear during the middle of 1974. There have been consultations with the company. I agree that it is not the largest ship repairing company in the country, but it is not the smallest either.

Mr. Heffer: I should like to underline my right hon. Friend's comment. This company was included in the list of ship repairing companies to be taken over long before it spent one halfpenny. Is it not scandalous that the company should have lobbied hon. Members at considerable cost and spent enormous sums to subvert hon. Members away from the basic political purpose of Bill?

Mr. Varley: I have heard rumours about the activities and public relations activities of Bristol Channel Ship Repairers, but I have no personal knowledge of them. All I can say on behalf of the Government is that the management and the workers of the company were seen by my noble Friend and that every communication addressed by the company to my Department has been answered in detail.

Industry Act 1975

Mr. Wigley: asked the Secretary of State for Industry in what way the powers conferred on him by the Industry Act 1975 have been used to date to establish new manufacturing industries; and how many new jobs can be attributed to the use of the powers of this Act.

Mr. Les Huckfield: My right hon. Friend has used his powers to provide substantial funds for the National Enterprise Board. These will create and sustain a large number of jobs in new and existing industry.

Mr. Wigley: Does the Minister appreciate that there will be great regret that he is unable to give any specific number for the jobs so far created by these steps? Will he accept that if there is to be order in the industrial world it will require economic planning? Are his Government still committed to economic planning?

Mr. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to vote for it tomorrow night.

Mr. Huckfield: As my hon. Friend says, tomorrow night the hon. Gentleman will have a first-class opportunity for bringing more planning into at least one section of our industry. He ought to be aware that the NEB has within its holdings about 750,000 jobs and is responsible for firms with a turnover of about £3,000 million. I should not have thought that that was a bad way to start and, further, I should have thought that the board was making a significant contribution to saving jobs.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Can my hon. Friend confirm that as well as the National Enterprise Board we have the Welsh Development Agency and the Scottish Development Agency, and that what we want for economic planning is to maintain

the economic and political unity of Britain rather than to talk about splitting it into separate parts?

Mr. Huckfield: My hon. Friend is right. The Welsh Development Agency has primary responsibility for industrial developments in Wales, and having been in Wales on Friday night I know the great concern that there is about some of the issues that my hon. Friend has been stressing.

Mr. Gow: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the best way to secure the regeneration of British industry that he wants to see is to allow the free market to operate in British industry?

Mr. Mellish: Shut up. The hon. Gentleman knows nothing about it.

Mr. Gow: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the free market is a far better guide to profitable industry than arbitrary decisions of the NEB?

Mr. Huckfield: I did not think that it would be long before Selsdon man appeared on the Tory Benches. The hon. Gentleman ought to realise that it has been the crushing failure of British private industry to invest in significant redevelopment that has made it essential for the Government to put money into British industry to get some regeneration and restructuring.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Before the myth that the Government provide money that is manufactured in a building on the other side of Whitehall is carried too far, will the Minister say what proportion of the money reinvested by the board is derived from the general body of taxation, which in turn is derived from British private industry? What effect has this had on general employment levels in the rest of private industry?

Mr. Huckfield: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has such touching faith in the ability of the private sector to produce the industrial regeneration that this country vitally needs. I only wish that it had been matched by the performance of the private sector.

National Enterprise Board

Mr. Ridley: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he is satisfied that the investment activities of the


National Enterprise Board are meeting the objectives provided in the Industry Act 1975.

Mr. Kaufman: The Act speaks not of objectives but of the board's purposes, functions, powers and duties, all of which bear on its investment activities, and all of which it is exercising to my satisfaction.

Mr. Ridley: Is it not, broadly speaking, true that all that this great board has so far done is to give £5 million to Lonrho, which after all was the unacceptable face of capitalism, to buy up Brentford Nylons?

Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman has maintained his unparalleled record for every word he delivers being totally inaccurate. The board has nothing to do with that matter. It has not donated—to use a word liked by the hon. Gentleman's party—any money to Lonrho in this situation. The board is using the money which the Government have allocated to it for excellent purposes of extending public enterprise into profitable manufacturing industry.

Mr. John Garrett: My hon. Friend is clearly aware that a major objective of the board was to extend public ownership into profitable manufacturing industry rather than to rescue the lame ducks. When is the expansion of public ownership into profitable manufacturing industry likely to take place?

Hon. Members: Not this week.

Mr. Kaufman: Gradually. It has already begun. [Interruption.] If my hon. Friend will allow me to digress before I answer his question with my customary amplitude, may I say that the Conservative Party must make up its mind whether the board is doing too much or not enough. We are receiving complaints of both kinds from the Conservatives.
As regards what my hon. Friend asked, the board has already taken shares in Brown Boveri Kent Ltd. and in International Computers, and other transactions are being proposed which are commercially confidential at present but which will be announced when that is possible. The Government have cause to be satisfied with the way in which the board is conducting itself.

Mr. Grylls: Is the Minister claiming that Brown Boverie Kent is a successful investment? It cost the Government £6 million when they acquired it and it has been transferred to the NEB at just over £1 million. Is that a successful investment? If not, will the hon. Gentleman tell the House which is the most successful and profitable investment so far made by the NEB?

Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman is talking about a company in which private enterprise was totally unsuccessful and for which a rescue operation had to be conducted. The board has now expanded its holding in order to make that enterprise profitable, as it will. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Herfordshire, South (Mr. Parkinson), who is a little more vocal than usual for a Whip, talks about investing in success. When we say that the board will invest in profitable manufacturing industry, the Conservatives tell us that we are nationalising through the back door.

Mr. Heffer: Does my hon. Friend recall that the Bill setting up the board included a provision that regular statements—I think that they were to be annual—would be laid before the House on the work of the board, what it was doing, where it was investing and so on? When will such a statement be made available? In supporting the board, many of us are most keen to see exactly how far its activities are extended.

Mr. Kaufman: All commitments made in regard to the board by Ministers, whether by my hon. Friend when he had charge of these matters or by other Ministers, will be fulfilled. I shall examine my hon. Friend's point and respond to him further.

Mr. Tom King: Is the Minister aware that we admire the Government's recognition that the NEB's powers of management are limited in certain respects? Will he confirm that he will shortly be putting before the House a Bill for the denationalisation of Kearney Trecker and Marwin Ltd.?

Mr. Kaufman: There is a later Question on the Order Paper dealing with that matter, but the Opposition are so disorderly that they do not realise that. My hon. Friend the Minister of State will


answer that Question. It is a pity the hon. Gentleman wasted his supplementary question in that ludicrous way.

Civil Aircraft (European Collaboration)

Mr. Tebbit: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what proposals he has put to the EEC Ministers responsible for their national aerospace industries for a civil aircraft production programme within Europe.

Mr. Kaufman: M. Cavaille and I recently agreed that our aircraft industries should explore together the possibilities of United Kingdom participation in derivatives of the airbus, European participation on the HS146 should the project be relaunched, and European collaboration on future 150–180-seat medium-range aircraft.

Mr. Tebbit: Does the Minister mean that after all the rubbish about the failures of the private sector, and after two and a half years in office, that is all he has to report as the carrying out of the obligations imposed upon him? What is restraining him? Let the hon. Gentleman not say that it is the nationalisation Bill, because he has ample powers under the Civil Aviation Act 1949 to do anything which needs to be done. Why does he not get on with it instead of talking rubbish?

Mr. Kaufman: When I met Michel Cavaille on 29th March I raised the question of collaboration with the French on civil aircraft projects. One of the problems that confronted me in having those conversations was that in all the preceding years none of the privately-owned aircraft companies had put forward a single proposal for collaborative projects with Europe.

Mr. Tebbit: What about the A300B?

Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman once again demonstrates his farcical ignorance. We are not a partner in the A300B. We are a sub-contracting associate. The great problem in achieving collaboration is that the British Aerospace Organising Committee is having to operate in a vacuum created by the inactivity and lack of initiative of the aircraft industry under private ownership.

Mr. Whitehead: Does my hon. Friend agree that collaboration in aero engines as

well as aircraft bodies is equally important? Does he agree, therefore, that French and British aero engines should be given preference over American engines in these projects?

Mr. Kaufman: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that, after the period of lassitude and inactivity under private enterprise, now that we are having discussions on collaboration with the European aircraft industries—with the French in particular—Michel Cavaille mentioned to me the possibility of the use of the Rolls-Royce engine in the airbus. That will be one of the dividends we draw from public ownership of the airframe industry.

Mr. Warren: Bearing in mind that the Minister told me earlier today that he had received no proposals from the British aircraft industry for new projects, where does he get his ideas and information which enable him to go unilaterally to M. Cavaille and put forward ideas which have not come from that industry?

Mr. Kaufman: The airbus proposal came from the French, not from British industry. The HS146 was hawked around by Hawker Siddeley Aviation provided the Government funded it 100 per cent., which is an interesting interpretation of the words "private enterprise".
The 150–180-seat plane to which I referred was mentioned to me by the French. There is the Mercure which is a possibility, but I am very interested—and I told BAC that I was interested—in having the X-11 discussed as a possibility.

Mr. Heseltine: The Minister of State must know, and will he confirm, that his record of the private sector is a travesty of the truth? The fact is that all the projects he has put before the House originated in the private sector and were being discussed by the Conservative Government when his Government came to power. The last two years have been a culpable dereliction of duty by the Labour Party.

Mr. Kaufman: The main partner with which we will he associating if we go into the airbus project will, in fact, be that paragon of private enterprise, Aerospatiale, which bitterly regrets the possibility of having to negotiate with a nationalised aircraft industry. As to


what the hon. Gentleman said, with the inaccuracy which once led him to have to apologise to the House about the HS146, the fact is that when my right hon. Friend, now the Secretary of State for Energy, had this project brought before him, it was on the basis that it would have to be abandoned unless the Government paid all the costs 100 per cent. If it were not for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and the holding contract he placed, that project would now be dead.

LOSS OF EXPECTATION OF LIFE

Mr. Hooson: asked the Attorney-General whether he is satisfied that the awards of damages for loss of expectation of life under the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 remain adequate in the light of inflation over the past 10 years.

The Attorney-General (Mr. S. C. Silkin): The conventional sum usually awarded by the courts for loss of expectation of life has varied from £200 in 1941 to £500 by 1966 and to £750 by 1973. I am not aware of any more recent variation.
The whole principle of damages for loss of expectation of life or for bereavement is within the terms of reference of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Compensation for Personal Injury.

Mr. Hooson: While I accept that it is right that the Royal Commission should look at the principle of the award, may I ask whether, from his experience, the right hon. and learned Gentleman agrees that lay people in particular find it difficult to understand the ludicrously low award given for loss of expectancy of life? Does he not also agree in principle that the sums awarded should now be very much higher, if only in the light of inflation?

The Attorney-General: As I am certain the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware, the whole issue to which he refers is the issue between the basis of the present compensation which goes to the executors and compensation for bereavement, which is a totally different thing. One can well understand what the hon.

and learned Gentleman said with regard to that. That is entirely a matter for the Royal Commission to investigate, and it is considering that very question.

Mr. Buck: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us something about the timetable which he envisages for the Royal Commission, so that we may know when we shall get some of the answers to the questions raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson)?

The Attorney-General: The Royal Commission expects to complete its work early next year and to publish its report as soon as possible thereafter.

LAW SOCIETY

Mr. Ashley: asked the Attorney-General when he next proposes to meet the Law Society.

The Attorney-General: My noble Friend is in frequent contact with the Law Society. If there is any particular matter which my hon. Friend would like me to raise, I shall be glad to consider it.

Mr. Ashley: What is my right hon. and learned Friend prepared to do about the Phillimore Report and the changes in the law of contempt? Is he prepared to discuss this matter with the Law Society and other interested bodies so that there will be an extension of Press freedom and an ending of the gagging of the Press by existing legislation?

The Attorney-General: I listened with great interest to what my hon. Friend said last night during "The Editors" programme. Certainly, this is a matter of great importance and difficulty. I very much hope that my noble Friend will be in a position to say something about it before too long. I am afraid I have to say that he is not yet in a position to do so, but I appreciate my hon. Friend's desire that a quick answer should be given.

Mr. Christopher Price: When my right tion of this House which has arisen over its apparent attempt to block law centres hon. and learned Friend meets the Law Society, will he convey to it the irritain both London and other parts of the country on grounds which should not be


any of its concern? Will he also convey to it that there is a great need for a law centre in the London borough of Lewisham? When this application comes to the Government, we very much hope that we shall not get the same sort of treatment as Hillingdon got when it tried to get a law centre going in its area.

The Attorney-General: I hope to meet the Law Society on Thursday evening, provided that somebody will pair with me. If I do so, I shall certainly respond to what my hon. Friend has said. But in doing so I shall wish to congratulate Law Society on having now reached an agreement in principle on the whole question of waivers, and I have little doubt that when the details of this have been published my hon. Friend will be pleased at the result.

Mr. Freud: When the Attorney-General next meets the Law Society, will he discuss with it some simple appeals procedure, particularly in cases where the Law Society turns down a solicitor's application for a leader, a "silk"?

The Attorney-General: If I understand what the hon. Gentleman is asking me, it would be within the terms of the Royal Commission on Legal Services. While I take note of what he says, we really must await the setting up and the report of that commission.

MR. KINGSLEY READ

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Attorney-General if he will refer to the Director of Public Prosecutions, with a view to prosecution for incitement to violence, the recent statements on racial matters by Mr. Kingsley Read.

The Attorney-General: I referred this matter to the Director on 16th June. Police inquiries have been commenced and a report will be submitted to the Director. I shall then consider the evidence to decide what further action is required.

Mr. Whitehead: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Does he accept that, while many in this House feel that free speech is a precious right of every citizen, it cannot abrogate the

civil rights of others? The speech referring to
One down, one million to go
could be taken as gloating over the death of one such citizen and encouraging the deaths of others.

The Attorney-General: I can certainly assure my hon. Friend, and I am sure his views are echoed in all parts of the House, that, if anything corresponding to that which was reported by the Press was in fact said, it is quite deplorable. On the question of prosecution, I must await the report on the evidence of what was said and also on how it fits into the law as it now stands.

Mr. Adley: While I also deplore the statement attributed to Mr. Read, will the Attorney-General take care in what he is doing in view of the fact that the National Front got within a few hundred votes of the Liberals at Rotherham, and would have got seven seats on Leicester City Council if proportional representation had been in operation? We must not create martyrs out of people of that sort by playing into their hands.

The Attorney-General: Yes, I always take care in what I am doing. I agree with the hon. Gentleman to this extent, that it is certainly inadvisable to create martyrs, particularly if, in the process, they are acquitted of the offences with which they are charged. At the same time, if one gets a particularly glaring case it is absolutely right that it should be proceeded with under the law as it stands, and I shall have no hesitation in doing so if the evidence is sufficient.

Mr. Lane: In view of the damage being done to race relations and the alarm caused to minority communities by the statements and activities of Mr. Read and the National Front, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make even clearer that while prosecutions for incitement should be sparingly brought, vigorous action should be taken wherever those activities and statements clearly go beyond the law?

The Attorney-General: Certainly, and that was the effect of my previous answer.

FISHERIES POLICY

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on fisheries policy.
I should like to deal first with the short-term consequences of the agreement with Iceland for fishermen and shore-based workers whose jobs are likely to be affected. We intend, as a Government, to do all we can to avoid hardship to those concerned. We shall give all possible help under the existing schemes for the retraining and resettlement of redundant workers.
We shall discuss with the unions and employers the feasibility of an arrangement for compensation for those fishermen directly affected by the settlement who, because they do not have regular contracts of employment, are denied the benefits they might otherwise have received under the redundancy payments Acts.
We know that our fishing opportunities will undergo radical change. In the Government's view a satisfactory revision of the EEC's common fisheries policy is of major importance and priority. Other countries outside the European Community are preparing to extend their fisheries limits to 200 miles. We are therefore pressing for an early declaration that the member States of the Community intend to do the same.
We have also made very clear to the Community the United Kingdom's requirements for a reserved coastal band of not less than 12 miles, and extending in parts to 50 miles. We are pressing also for early progress in the Community's negotiations with third countries about access to their waters for British and other Community fishermen and about the limitation of fishing by third countries in the waters of member States. Outside the coastal bands we expect there to be a system of properly enforced quotas to ensure fair shares of the available fish resources and effective conservation of fish stocks.
As these negotiations progress, we shall be able to establish more precise objectives for our fishing industry. But already it is clear that changes will be called for in the structure of the fishing fleet, including provision of more stable

conditions of employment. Changes will be called for in handling and distribution and in the processing industries.
The fish resources available to us will include species different from those now familiar to the consumer. Work on methods of processing and using these new species will be intensified. In carrying forward our plans, we shall of course seek to derive maximum benefit from any EEC schemes.
Accordingly the fisheries Ministers and other Ministers concerned are embarking on a programme of consultation with the industries and other interests affected. As a first step in this consultation my colleagues and I are meeting more than 30 representative organisations later this afternoon.
The international regime for fisheries is changing, and other factors are making adjustments inevitable. We can begin to see the direction in which a new strategy can be developed. The Government are determined to ensure that our fisheries resources and the industries exploiting them make a major contribution to the British economy.

Mr. Pym: We are grateful to the Minister for that statement, as far as it goes. We on these Benches are certainly desirous that the Government should carry into effect their determination to ensure that our fisheries resources shall make a major contribution to the British economy. We are also glad that he and his colleagues are starting discussions with the industry and its representatives today. But does it not seem to him rather late to be starting now? Should not these negotiations and consultations have been taking place throughout the past year?
The Minister referred to the exclusive zone, the coastal band, as
… not less than 12 miles, and extending in parts to 50 miles.
Does that not seem to him, as it seems to us, to be a far weaker statement of our position than was laid down earlier by the Government? It does not seem to conform to the very strong "definitive position" to which the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office has referred earlier. I am sure that the Minister knows that there is more concern about limits than about anything else, because they represent the industry's livelihood and are vital for monitoring.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to "properly enforced quotas". Is he aware that the best way of achieving them is by having a larger coastal band, up to 50 miles?
On negotiations with third countries, we support this approach on a Community basis, but does the Minister accept that there must be a clear understanding among members of the Community beforehand as to the advantages and sacrifices involved in any of the agreements reached?
As for changes in structure, will the Minister give assurances about the inshore fleet, which feels threatened by events in deeper waters lately? Would he also tell us more of the Government's plans for exploiting other species, such as the blue whiting, which will clearly become of great importance to us?
We are glad that the Minister acknowledges that, because of the nature of their occupation, fishermen will need some special and additional arrangements beyond what is contained in the redundancy payments Acts, but can he be more specific?
When does the right hon. Gentleman think that his consultations and his negotiations with his partners in Europe will be complete, so that the industry can know for sure how to plan for the future and what it has to plan for?

Mr. Peart: The right hon. Gentleman has rightly put some important questions. Although I am meeting this large body today, there have been many informal meetings before this on a departmental basis, with my staff and officials. This is not something new, but I thought I should mention the important meeting, which will be one of the largest ever held by a Minister on this matter.
We still have to consider the terms of negotiation and discussion. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the figures I gave about our position in relation to the Community. We are in a negotiating position now and I cannot say what may come out of it. I have said what has been said to the House previously by the Minister of State. We shall now go into negotiations for a re-adaptation of the common fisheries policy. I have always believed in this. I had great reservations about what was negotiated previously, but I was not the negotiator.

I will do my best to see what can be done. The negotiations on the limits mentioned in May will be conducted by the Foreign Office and the Ministers concerned.
I was asked whether there would be a clear understanding about third countries. Again, this is a matter for negotiation. Countries such as Norway, which supply us with fish and in whose waters we fish, are important countries and we must have discussions on that situation, also on a Community basis.
As for changes in the structure of the inshore fleet, I shall have discussions with that section of the industry, but I cannot say what adaptations will be made. It will depend on what we achieve out of the Community through negotiations. We shall have to exploit new species such as blue whiting.
On redundancy, I cannot be more specific: that will be a matter for the Department of Employment. It will have to identify the people affected, but it has been agreed in principle that a special scheme will be needed.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to seek the help of the House. The time taken on questions and answers on this statement will come out of the time not of the next debate but of the debate on the child benefit scheme. I have the names of many hon. Members who wish to speak in that debate. If hon. Members who are now called to ask supplementary questions would please make them direct and short, it would be very helpful.

Mr. James Johnson: Does my right hon. Friend accept that this statement has been basically triggered off by the tragic Icelandic settlement? Would he say more about compensation? He said that the difficulty might be the identification of the work force. Is he contemplating handshakes such as the dockers get from the NDLB? What steps are he and his Cabinet colleagues taking to initiate talks upon decasualisation so that these men are no longer looked upon as second-class citizens by comparison with their fellow workers on shore and indeed with men in the Merchant Navy? If we are to go for a 50-mile limit, shall we not need a much larger enforcement squadron of fishery protection vessels?

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend is chairman of the all-party Committee on Fisheries, and I understand his great concern. We have agreed in principle that there will be certain redundancies not covered by existing legislation. That is why we are having talks with the trade unions and the employers.
On the question of decasualisation, here we are dealing with future conditions of employment for fishermen. This will be a subject which will inevitably arise during consultations with the industry. I have already met the trade unions on this matter.
Mention was made about extended limits and the broader issues. We have agreed to have a further five new protection vessels, and they are under construction, and four aircraft will be provided to operate in conjunction with the ships.

Mr. Powell: If other countries all round the world are to have 200-mile limits, how can 12 miles, with an occasional extension to 50 miles, be enough for Britain?

Mr. Peart: This is a matter for discussion with the Community in the re-adaptation of the common fisheries policy, but I believe that the Community should make an early decision and announce our desire to go to the 200-mile limit.

Mr. McNamara: May I welcome the Minister's statement and only regret that, as it contains so much that we knew before, it was not made the same day as the announcement of the Icelandic settlement? There is not a great deal new in it. The suggestions my right hon. Friend has made were matters which were put to him a long time ago.
May I also welcome on behalf of the union his statement about redundancy payments and express the hope that we can have details of the scheme as soon as possible? I also welcome his proposals to look at the question of decasualisation in the future. Having said that, I repeat that much of this could have been said a fortnight ago and it would have saved a lot of time now.

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend has said that this should have been said by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary a fortnight ago. Let us be fair to the Foreign Secretary. He was dealing specifi-

cally with the Icelandic agreement. I have now to deal with the consequences, and that is what I am doing.
I am glad that my hon. Friend welcomed what I said. I said on a previous occasion that there is inevitably a great problem of what we achieve in relation to the re-adaptation of the common fisheries policy.

Mr. John Davies: The Minister mentioned the unilateral intention which the Community might have, and which he welcomes, to nominate an exclusive economic zone of 200 miles. Is he able to tell the House firmly that matters other than fisheries will also be considered within that framework? Many other matters are concerned with the exclusive economic zone and I would hope that these would be taken into account as well as the fisheries issue.

Mr. Peart: The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that a decision on a 200-mile exclusive zone affects the Continental Shelf and other important matters. If we are forced into this position I hope that the Community would be able to announce that.

Mr. Watt: Will the Minister acknowledge that many Scottish fishing interests say that this is the final sell-out? When will the Minister start standing up for the British people and insist on a 100-mile zone exclusive to our own people? Does he not recognise that there is an opportunity for expansion of the fishing industry, not of contraction? Does he further recognise that no Scottish Government of any calibre or complexion whatsoever will agree to abide by this kind of decision?

Mr. Peart: I always listen to the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt), but he is being unrealistic to talk about a 100-mile zone. We still have to negotiate and to get a re-adaptation of the common fisheries policy, and in the end Scotland will benefit.

Mr. Prescott: Is it not a fact that the common fisheries policy will have still greater consequences on our fishing industry than the Icelandic deal? If this statement today was intended to assist those facing the consequences of that agreement, it has done nothing to help the fishermen who have been put off by the


trawler owners who are reducing their ships to the minimum number possible. Will my right hon. Friend now give us a positive affirmation that decasualisation will operate in this industry and that money will be provided for these fishermen who have been made redundant by the agreement of 1972?

Mr. Peart: I do not know why my hon. Friend should get so angry—

Mr. Prescott: Decasualisation.

Mr. Peart: The Government have decided, after discussions with the trade unions and with the employers, that there will be a special redundancy scheme which will be favourable to those fishermen who are not covered by previous legislation. What more does my hon. Friend want for them?

Mr. Prescott: Decasualisation.

Mr. Peart: I have said that the question of decasualisation will inevitably arise in the discussion. I am amazed that my hon. Friend is being so irresponsible.

Mr. Beith: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that our inshore fishing areas are genuinely horrified that each time he comes before the House the Government's negotiating position in relation to the EEC seems to have been weakened?

Mr. Peart: I cannot accept that statement. Our negotiating position was declared by the Minister, and we hold to that. This will be a matter for negotiation. I cannot prejudge what will emerge. I know that the hon. Gentleman is a very reasonable person. He must understand the position.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher: To what sort of timetable is the Minister working to prevent a complete collapse of confidence in the inshore industry in Scotland? Why in his statement did he make no reference to herrings?

Mr. Peart: Although I cannot state what the specific timetable will be, we recognise that it is an urgent matter. I cannot say whether it will be a week, a fortnight, or a month. It is a matter to be discussed in Europe.

Mr. Robert Hughes: First, will my hon. Friend confirm that the Scottish Trawlers Federation is to be involved in this after-

noon's discussion? As his repeated consultations with the industry in the past about limits have given him the strong message that nothing less than a 50-mile exclusive zone would be acceptable, why does he not accept these views? Does he intend to take the advice on this occasion and stick by it?

Mr. Peart: This is a matter of access. A study of our coastal line and the different fish feeding off our coasts shows that what has been suggested by the Foreign Office provides a good basis for discussions in the Community.
Today I am to see the Scottish Trawlers Federation Ltd., the Scottish Fishermen's Federation Ltd., and the Aberdeen Trawler Officers Guild, amongst other bodies. I could go on and give a whole list of people represented—producers, trade unions, port wholesalers and inland wholesalers. I hope that Scottish Ministers will be present with me.

Mr. Clegg: Is the Minister aware that the statement he made is one which will be greatly resented in the fishing ports, especially as it constitutes a weakening of the bargaining position on limits? We started off going for 100 miles, then we went down to 50, and now it is down to 12. Will he make up his mind?

Mr. Peart: I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman, who has an interest in Fleetwood. We are anxious to help those who were affected by the Icelandic dispute and who have been declared redundant. I have already said that. What more does the hon. Gentleman want? This applies to Humberside as well. The fishermen there have been affected, too. I am anxious that help should be given to those who have been declared redundant. However, the longer-term issue of the structure of the fleet in Fleetwood is another matter. There will be specific discussions.

Mr. Buchan: Am I right in thinking that our reply to the 200-mile demand which has been sought and achieved by other countries is that we are to draw back to 12 miles? Is it not the case that there is no element of gain here but that this is the position as put forward by the Commission? Thirdly, is it not the case that every statement we get on this matter retreats the lines still further? Fourthly, is it not the case that the earlier


position of 50 miles was totally rejected by the industry? If this retreat has happened before negotiation, what in the name of God will happen after we negotiate?

Mr. Peart: I cannot accept that. We are in the Community now. My hon. Friend must face that, whether he believes in the Community or not. Some hon. Members act as though we are not in the Community. I understand that and I respect their point of view. However, we are in the Community and we must readapt the common fisheries policy. When we make a decision on the 200-mile limit it must be a Community decision. In negotiating with the third countries we derive great strength from being in the Community.
With regard to benefits from the Community, I assure my hon. Friends who represent fishing interests that they have benefited considerably. The EEC has authorised grants worth £7 million, and £1½million of this is going to Humberside and Yorkshire, mainly for fishing projects.

Mr. Rathbone: The right hon. Gentleman has not touched on any of the problems of the inshore fleet, as the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) pointed out. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the greatest child benefit that he could possibly be talking about would be the maintenance of one of the nation's greatest food resources, namely, fish?

Mr. Peart: I agree, but the hon. Member must know that I am dealing with a statement that was made in the course of the aftermath of the Iceland agreement. The inshore fishing fleet will be a prosperous industry serving the nation with food.

Mr. Warren: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are the premier country in the whole of the Community and that, therefore, we ought to be in the leadership? In fact, we are merely following behind. Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that he has to get a move on because the whole industry is in peril?

Mr. Peart: I am surprised at a Conservative Member chiding me about our

position in the Community. The Tories should have negotiated a better deal. However, we are in the Community now and we have instanced our desire to readapt the Community's fishing policy to what we think is a new situation. I believe that this will benefit our industry.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Does the Minister realise that it is not a question of readapting the Community's fishing policy but of re-adapting his starting point in the negotiations time after time, having gone back from 100 miles to 12 miles? It is a disgraceful retreat and it will be disastrous to our national interests.

Mr. Peart: The hon. and learned Member's suggestion of a 100-mile limit in relation to the common fisheries policy is completely unrealistic.

PRIVATE BILL COMMITTEES (DECLARATION BY MEMBERS)

Mr. Brian Sedgemore: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise a matter of which I have given you notice, and therefore I can be brief.
On 23rd June I received a directive from the Committee of Selection saying that I had been appointed to the Committee on a Private Bill dealing with the Methodist Church [Lords] Bill. It was couched in the usual form of an offer which one could not refuse—"Sign this declaration or you will be reported to the House" and "Turn up in time or you will be fined and thrown into the Tower." My first reaction was to sign the declaration, and my second was to read it. It says:
I, the undersigned, having been selected by the Committee of Selection to serve as a Member of the Committee on the Methodist Church Bill [Lords] hereby declare, that my constituents have no local interest, and that I have no personal interest, in the said Bill.
I then looked at the Long Title of the Bill which says:
An Act to make further provision concerning the constitution, purposes, doctrinal standards and property of the Methodist Church in Great Britain.
It is clear that there are many Methodist churches in my constituency, as there are in every constituency in Great Britain. In fact, my constituents have an interest in the broad matters concerning the Bill, and it is virtually certain that


they have a specific interest in the property referred to in the Bill.
I wrote to the Clerk of the Committee of Selection saying that although I was happy to serve on the Committee, I could not sign the declaration. The Clerk's reply of 24th June caused me some concern. He said:
My advice is that you can safely sign the declaration form because the Methodist Church is so large an organisation that one may assume that there are members of it in most if not all constituencies. The phrase 'local interest' is by practice taken to mean an interest peculiar to one area rather than others.
It seems to me that I am being told that I may sign the declaration knowing it to be false, on the basis that it is a pretty fair bet that other Members who sign the declaration will also know that it is false.
If the intention of the Standing Orders is to prevent constituents getting at Members of Parliament, they would seem all the more necessary by virtue of the size of the organisation and the fact that the organisation has members with a local interest in nearly every constituency. It seems to me that I should either be asked to sign a different declaration or that those Members with Methodist churches in their constituencies should not sign the declaration, and that we should perhaps turn to

the Irish Members. I am not in the least inclined to sign the declaration and I do not believe other hon. Members are either.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful, as I know the House will be, to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has advanced his problem. The House will not be surprised to learn that I shall ask for time in which to consider the points that have been submitted. I shall make my ruling tomorrow.

Mr. Robert Mellish: You are a Methodist. Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I could tell the right hon. Gentleman what he is, but I will not.

NEW MEMBER

The following Member took and subscribed the Oath: Joseph Stanley Crowther Esq., for Rotherham.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply), the Business of Supply may be anticipated by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.—[Mr. Frank R. White.]

CABINET DOCUMENTS (DISCLOSURE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr. Peyton.)

Leave having been given on Thursday 24th June under Standing Order No. 9 to discuss:

The refusal of the Government to provide an interim statement on the progress of the inquiry into the leakage of Cabinet papers.

3.58 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: On 17th June the New Society published an article entitled
Killing a Commitment: The Cabinet versus the Children.
The sub-title to that article read:
The Government's decision to scrap the child benefit plan was a notorious retreat. Here, from Cabinet Minutes, is an account of how the scuttling occurred.
Later on today the House will have an opportunity of debating both the merits of the original scheme and the rights and wrongs of the decision to abandon it. In this debate we are concerned with how the New Society was able to present an accurate, continuous and comprehensive account of Cabinet proceedings.
I wish to quote by way of illustration two excerpts from the article.
At the cabinet meeting on the following day (25 May) the Prime Minister asked the Chancellor to report on this meeting with the TUC chiefs to discuss the proposals put forward at the cabinet meeting on 6 May.
I omit a few words, and the article continues:
The cabinet minutes record: 'On being informed of the reduction in take-home pay, which the child benefits scheme would involve, the TUC representatives had reacted immediately and violently against its implementation, irrespective of the level of benefits which would accompany the reduction in take-home pay.
The article later continues and this is the last quotation with which I shall weary the House:
The minutes give a clear idea of how the present cabinet views political activity. The Prime Minister was insistent on a careful sell for the U-turn on child benefits.
The Prime Minister on 17th June—column 738 of Hansard—acknowledged that there had been access direct or indirect to Cabinet minutes and documents.

He decleared that there was involved either a theft or a betrayal of trust, and that the stringent rules governing the circulation of such papers had been broken. On 22nd June, in response to a question put to him by my right hon. Friend the the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister made it quite clear that a leak such as this had never to his knowledge happened before.
I intend to resist the temptation to dwell at length on the somewhat colourful and unusual comments by the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office, who has particular responsibility for information. I leave him to dwell on the relative singing ability of choirs in the Rhondda or Whitehall. But it is impossible to overlook the charge he levelled against his colleagues and their advisers that, for the most doubtful of reasons, there had been a conscious and premeditated leakage of top-level discussions and decisions.
Did the hon. Gentleman base that diagnosis on knowledge or on surmise? I assume that, since we have had no note of public dissent from the Government, they endorse the judgment of their colleague. Indeed, the Prime Minister on 22nd June—column 1358—said that probably the only mistake the Minister made was to talk about the last 18 months. Therefore, apparently, the Government share his view.
Presumably they also agree with him that this is not an isolated incident, but part of a long process. If that is right and has been their view for some time, I must ask why they waited so long until something serious occurred before they took action and why, when they took action, they were so timid and halfhearted in what they did.
I hope that the Leader of the House will answer today far more clearly than he did on the previous occasion when we discussed this matter. I hope that he will also say whether he sees any connection between such leaks as are now becoming so frequent and the erosion which has taken place in recent years of the rule requiring civil servants to be apolitical and to remain free from partisan attitudes. I should also like to ask whether he sees some risks arising from the present Government practice of appointing special political advisers when it is clear that such advisers are likely to have special political commitments and


when such committments could well lead to error.
It would be appropriate if I were to say a few words on the unpleasant subject of secrecy. Preoccupation with secrecy is a particularly odious characteristic of oppressive and evil regimes, but there is no system of government in the world, however open or pure, that can entirely do without some clothing of secrecy in its procedures. None could withstand exposure in detail of all the arguments and discussions that must precede a publicly-announced decision. Ministers and their advisers must be able to trust one another to resist the temptation, if they lose an argument in private, to bring that issue into a more public arena by means that are dishonourable as well as unlawful.
The Press and the radio in the last few days have been full of allegations, made by a large number of bodies, that classified information is only too readily available. There has been a positive avalanche of claims, not just to have access to such information, but to have a regular and almost embarrassing supply of it. I hope that the Leader of the House will he able to say that that is not true.
I am not saying that no leaks have ever occurred before. It is common ground, with this exception, as the Prime Minister admitted the other day, that there has never been, so far as I know, a leak of Cabinet minutes which have been freely quoted in the newspaper. I hope that if the right hon. Gentleman cannot satisfy the House that such claims as have been made about the wide distribution of classified information are unfounded, he will be able to satisfy the House that the Government now intend to take rigorous action to check a very dangerous habit.

Mr. Robert Mellish: The right hon. Gentleman spoke of an avalanche of information. Indeed, I have read about the "boxes of information" and the statement that this process has gone on since 1971. Would he like to make a comment about the situation between 1971 and 1974, and then we can take the matter from there?

Mr. Peyton: I do not think that affects the situation. Indeed, if the right hon. Gentleman had been listening to me, he would have heard me say to the Leader of the House that I was not making the

point that leaks had originated with the present Administration. The "You-did-it-too" argument is an unsatisfactory form of defence, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will not use it. If they do, it will be a clear indication of their unwillingness to tackle a problem that has reached considerable dimensions. The point that is crucial to this argument is that all who wish to see parliamentary government survive in this country, whether we applaud or detest particular policies, share an overriding concern that the rules and procedures of this place and of the Government as a whole, which are the sinews of the system, should not be eaten away.

Mr. Max Madden: The right hon. Gentleman is rightly dealing with the subject of secrecy, but does he in this context envisage a reform of the Official Secrets Act? Will he further consider the comments made by Mr. Gordon, Chairman of the Tory Reform Group, to the effect that, instead of wasting energies on leaks and trying to pursue the subject, the official Opposition would be better occupied in starting a campaign for the total review of the Official Secrets Act? Does he agree with Mr. Gordon?

Mr. Peyton: I have many better things to do than to consider anything Mr. Gordon said or may have said. I find the hon. Gentleman's intervention entirely devoid of interest.
When things go wrong in the rather unpleasant area of secrecy, I concede that these is some obligation upon the Opposition to refrain from just licking their chops and savouring the embarrassment of the Government. But there is also a matching obligation upon the Government to keep Parliament informed and to satisfy it that the action being taken is appropriate. I concede that on 17th June, when the matter first came up in the House, the Prime Minister showed commendable candour, but neither the action taken by the Government in appointing Sir Douglas Allen to conduct an inquiry nor the Government's subsequent reluctance to say anything at all matched up to that obligation.
I have nothing but respect for Sir Douglas Allen, who is a distinguished civil servant, but I have a great deal of sympathy with him in being asked to


go off and dig without a spade. When asked to conduct inquiries of that kind, people such as he have no machinery with which to do it. They do not have anything. The decision of appointing him was shadow boxing by the Government in the hope that it would be sufficient to get them out of an embarrassing situation. The Government gave the impression that they hope that something token or minimal would suffice and that, with a bit of luck, the whole thing might blow over. Sir Douglas Allen's reasonable comment on the poor track record of such inquiries did nothing to dispel that impression.
I did not understand at the beginning, and I understand less now, why, with the possibility of theft in their minds, Ministers failed to call in the police at once. That is the normal step if theft is feared, and the Prime Minister referred to the possibility of theft.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) is as aware as I am—because we have both been in Government—that a strict security service operates in Government circles. Why, therefore, is it necessary to call in the police until one has given the security services the opportunity to make the fullest possible investigation?

Mr. Peyton: I was labouring under the rather naïve delusion that if a serious theft is thought to have taken place, one of the first things that a sensible person would do is to call in everyone who could help to trace the culprit. One's mind would light upon the police as at least one agency that could be brought in to help. I am not suggesting any bold or innovating action.
I do not understand why the Government did not say what further action they would take. I readily concede—I do not want to make any unfair or tricky points—that there is no ideal solution or course for which there is a precedent, but one cannot rule out the possibility of setting up a tribunal of inquiry. I am sure that the Government will have in mind that cumbersome inquiries, as tribunals have shown in the past, have a tendency to damage the innocent without always identifying the guilty. I am sure that they will have thought about

the possibility of appointing a Select Committee of the House of Commons, of both Houses, or of Privy Councillors.
Any of those courses, or any other alternative, have their shortcomings, defects and blemishes. But the overriding fact is that the Government are under an immense weight of obligation, facing as they do a thoroughly unpalatable situation which concerns not only the Government and the nation, but all those within and outside the country who give information to the Government. They will be concerned that there is someone in the higher reaches of government who is willing to give or to sell what he or she has no right to give or sell.
It makes no difference to me whether such acts are perpetrated for the purpose of furthering a cause or for some other personal gain. The overriding fact is that such acts involve a gross betrayal of trust, which has the undesirable consequence of bringing great mistrust upon the innocent. Many distinguished men and women in public life, members of the present Government and their advisers, must now feel themselves somewhere near the shadow of an unpleasant suspicion which has been brought about by the dishonesty of one individual. The public interest demands that the Government should spare no effort to find out who has done this grave thing.
The debate would not be taking place had the Leader of the House found it possible at the end of last week to promise a progress report on Sir Douglas Allen's inquiry and to promise that report within a fortnight of its being set up. I said earlier that a reply from the Government to the effect "You did it too", or a leisurely hope that the whole thing would somehow go away, would be inadequate today. I hope that the minimum the Government will tell us is what Sir Douglas Allen has found out, if anything, and what they intend to do. If they cannot satisfy us on those two minimum points, we shall be driven to the conclusion that they are shirking their duty and we shall express that view in the Lobby.

4.19 p.m.

Mr. Eric Moonman: I carefully followed the remarks of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) and I am bound to say that wording of


the subject for debate does less than justice to those of us who are equally concerned but reject the idea of dividing the House. There are two aspects to the debate—the political implications and the more serious one concerning a leak of information by some manner or means as yet unspecified. I shall deal wholly with the second area.
I have three or four questions, which I will ask briefly because a number of hon. Members want to speak on this important occasion. First, I believe that we cannot conduct the affairs of an organisation, let alone a nation, by inviting an employee when there has been a theft to own up. This was a feature of the style of inquiry mentioned by the Prime Minister. In rebutting the suggestion that the police should be informed, the Prime Minister said that he would ask for the "honour system" to operate—for the person who had done this to own up to it. It is surely an inadequate approach, when one has to invite the criminal to admit that he has erred. Secondly, there is the question of the scale of the leaks—and here I take up another point put by the right hon. Member for Yeovil. It is not just a question whether there has been an increase of leaks in any one period of government. What is important, and what must shock hon. Members on both sides of the House, is that we have had about 40 leaks in the last few years, probably more. I want to know whether any analysis has been made of these incidents, and what sort of information exists arising from the analysis, because the number of occasions when there has been misuse of information is frightening.
An irritating aspect of the matter to me it that it is, apparently, one on which the House may well divide. I hope, even at this late stage, that there will be no vote on the issue. We can all anticipate what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is likely to say, but there are such critical matters of cabinet government involved here and I believe that it will be a gross error not to show a united approach to the public that we, in Parliament, mean to get at the truth.
I return to the question of the number of leaks. What sort of correlation has been established in these 40 incidents? What factors are common to the scale of the thefts? With respect

to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office, whose speech has been quoted much in the last few weeks, I do not honestly think that we can, even in this preliminary debate, allow that reference to go by without some indication from him as to what he meant. I know that he cares very much about self-discipline and that he has a good sense of humour, but I hope that he will agree on reflection that his speech on this subject has caused considerable concern. If he is right and there is evidence about leaks on such a large scale, I, for one, want to know more detailed evidence.
The House is bound to ask what is the extent of this inquiry. We are assuming that the culprit is a civil servant. Yet what evidence have we for assuming that, or that the person concerned may even be in a Ministry?
We should also know what is the system of investigation. The right hon. Member for Yeovil suggested that in this case it was being done in a manner rather like asking a man to dig without a spade, and that observation was right. It would be helpful to the House if my right hon. Friend would indicate the methods employed thus far in trying to get this information. It will shock the House if we are told that the investigation is at an end as suggested in the weekend Press. The House will feel badly if the suggestions of the betrayal of trust indicate that, because the man or woman has not owned up, we cannot pursue the matter further.
I am driven to ask, as others are, just how secret is Government secrecy. In theory, the records of Government business are not open to publication for 30 years—the period was reduced from 50 years in 1967—and in cases where security or other interests are concerned the period can be 50 years, 75 years or 100 years. There is also discretion to open up records earlier, as has been done in the case of most of the records of the Second World War. The cover includes Government papers, whose limitation as sources of disclosure mean that the ministerial memoirs by Richard Crossman are included in the terms of the relevant Act. Whatever the situation of the present inquiry, we must come back to the question of the use of information.
After the publication of the Cross-man Diaries, the Radcliffe Committee was set up to consider the principles governing the publication of such memoirs. Its recommendations have been circulated as a kind of voluntary code of conduct. It suggested that national information on foreign affairs should be subject to veto by the Prime Minister and that the personal opinions and attitudes of colleagues and the advice given by civil servants should not be published for 15 years at least.
Whether these voluntary rules will be more effective is questionable. Cross-man's sin was to present his material in such a racy, journalistic readable style that it did not conceal its partisan opinions and breaches of confidence as a more statesmanlike presentation would have done. But "setting the record straight" will no doubt always be a powerful motivation for retiring politicians. No doubt many attempts to put the record straight are being considered at the moment. But the question of reasonable time limits in the publication of Government records does not reduce the seriousness of the number of leaks—indeed, more reasonable time limits would make leaks of decision-making still covered even more serious.
This is a very serious matter, but it is regrettable that we are having to debate this issue with the likelihood of the Opposition dividing the House. To my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House I say this: he will make a great mistake and misjudge the mood of the House and of the public if he thinks that this matter can be given anything less than a critical examination as to how and why the leaks have taken place. That question goes to the heart of the matter. No organisation, and certainly not the Government, can hope for credibility with the nation if it does not show itself taking the strongest possible measures to ensure that such abuse does not easily occur again.

4.26 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: We are all taking through a fog of uncertainty at this stage. We have not heard a word from the Government about what has happened. I agree with the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman)—I have joined him probably more than anyone else in the House in asking for greater

freedom of information. I have challenged the Attorney-General to prosecute me under the Official Secrets Act. I do not think that I can go much further than that. I am totally in accord with many of the things said by the hon. Member for Basildon.
We are faced with something far more important today than the question of prosecuting and persecuting someone who in 1922 revealed the price of Army fly buttons. We are concerned with a matter of enormous gravity. It is not just a question of loose mouths in the Cabinet but of loose fingers getting hold of Cabinet documents. That is the alarming thing about what has happened.
I hope that when he lets us into what the Government are doing the right hon. Gentleman will bear various matters in mind. The first is that cabinet government cannot be conducted unless there is total security of cabinet discussion. I believe in a five-year rule for most papers—indeed, I have more liberal ideas about information than do many other hon. Members—but when it comes to discustion in the Cabinet itself, there must be total and absolute security.
Since 1878 there have been three occasions when this principle has been breached. The first was the famous Marvin case in 1878, which, I suppose, was a breach of Cabinet security. The next was an inadvertent breach by the late Dick Crossman himself, who left papers at Prunier's. They were handed to Chapman Pincher and described in great detail a row between Crossman and the then Attorney-General. These papers were handed, quite correctly, to the police, and were not shown or discussed. They have now been revealed by Crossman himself in his diary, so there is nothing secret about them any more. The third occasion is this.
I have three observations to make about this issue. First, there is the problem of the conduct of the Government, which is obvious. Secondly, there is a much wider question. The Government are elected by the people, rightly or wrongly, to govern. If there is a betrayal of trust of this nature, it means that the Government, who have been elected by the people, are unable to carry out their duties of governing because of the frequent risk of breach of intrigue, and the use of the Press


against other members of the Cabinet, which makes their task almost impossible.
The third is even more important. Somewhere in the Cabinet, or near it, action has been taken by a politically motivated person. As far as I understand it, this is a case politically motivated by someone who feels very strongly about a matter that can be described as one of social justice. But should there be people who are politically motivated for other reasons which are far more sinister, whether those people are from the extreme Right or the extreme Left, the result may have the gravest possible consequences for the security of the State. This is what I find most worrying today. That is why my right hon. Friend was perfectly correct to move the Adjournment of the House and to press for the fullest possible inquiry.
Certain questions must be asked immediately. The first is about the actual circulation of these documents. This is a matter for the Civil Service. The second concerns positive vetting. I believe that those advisers who come in from outside the Civil Service, and Ministers, should be vetted to ensure that they are totally politically reliable. There should also be positive vetting in the same way and with a repetition after a number of years of civil servants working at certain levels in the private offices of Ministers, as there is a danger of defection from the course of duty.
This is not making a mountain out of a molehill. It is a matter of supreme importance to the State. Unless there can be controls, unless the rats who are nibbling away at the structure of the State are brought under control, the whole edifice of Parliament and the safety of our country are in danger. That is why I press the matter so strongly today.
I have often stood up in favour of political liberty and fought for more information to be given to the public. I believe from the bottom of my heart, having fought for the removal of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, that this goes to the root of government and that the Government must be protected. Proper action must be taken to discover how all this has come about.

4.35 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I had hoped to reply at

the end of the debate but I understand that an indication was given to the Opposition that I would take part early in the debate and then ask leave to speak again later. If the House thinks that it is better for me to intervene now, I am glad to do so, because the Government cannot complain about the terms in which the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) presented the matter. I will do my best to answer the questions he has raised and the anxieties which hon. Members have expressed. At the end of the debate I will be very careful to reply to any other questions raised.
In one sense it could be claimed that this debate came about because the right hon. Gentleman was criticising my failure to give an undertaking that I would make a statement to the House in a few days. The Standing Order No. 9 debate was allowed on the basis of my failure to promise a statement Therefore, this is not necessarily a debate on the whole security question involved. When we come down to the final conclusion of the matter, it is a narrow subject we are debating—the report on Sir Douglas Allen's inquiry. I do not seek to avoid any questions on that account, but I am saying that this is the basis on which the debate was accepted, and on which the House will come to a decision at the end of the day.
I do not believe that it would be an adequate or a satisfactory answer for me simply to recite the occasions on which there had been previous leakages and to tell the Opposition that it happened to them, too. It may be argued by some that this is a particular case because of the particular circumstances and the particular nature of the leakages. It would be possible to cite a number of occasions when leakages occurred under previous Governments—in fact there were a whole series of occasions. However I do not propose to do this, although I agree that on the whole this sort of thing has gone on for a much longer time, that it is a much larger question, and that it needs a much larger investigaton. That is a legitimate argument. But I am not seeking to reply on that basis.
On the general situation and the general themes which have been mentioned, there are major issues of principle involved, and nobody can doubt that. There is a clash of interests about what Governments of different complexions may say


about secrecy and what others may say about secrecy. There is a clash of interpretation of "in the public interest" There is a clash between Governments and many newspapers. Even Right-wing newspapers may have strong objections to the Official Secrets Act, and often Left-wing Governments take shelter behind the Official Secrets Act. There is a clash of interests between the claims of open government and the claims of disclosure and the necessity for confidentiality if cabinet government is to be properly conducted.
I say to the House and to anyone who has followed the controversy in the newspapers—not just Left-wing newspapers—that there is a difference of view not only between the Government and the newspapers outside but between citizens of the country generally and between Members of this House generally. These people say that we should protect Government confidentiality of documents but we must also protect open government so that the public are properly informed. This is a clash of two rights, not a right and a wrong, and that fact must be taken into account.
I am not seeking to weaken in any sense what was said by the Prime Minister or those who uphold the doctrine. I believe that it is the case that confidentiality is essential for the proper conduct of cabinet government.
I believe in the Privy Councillor's oath. I believe in the taking of that oath, which says that the person concerned will not reveal what is learned in those circumstances. I believe that Privy Councillors should abide by their oath or affirmation. So I do not quarrel with that doctrine, but we shall have to see how it can be applied and how breaches of it can be dealt with.
I shall come to the precise case in a moment. But the situation is not made any easier by the fact that, having established this broad expanse of theory and practice, there then flops over it like an unruly eiderdown the Official Secrets Act. It is either unusable or it may be suffocating. If the occupant of the bed turns on one side, he may open an aperture. If he turns on the other side, the eiderdown may fall off the bed altogether.
The Official Secrets Act is an unsatisfactory way of dealing with questions of

this kind. That is why successive Governments have said that there must be inquiries into it, and that is why recent cases in the courts have illustrated the difficulties and dangers of the operation of the Official Secrets Act. That is why the party to which I belong said in its manifesto that we would be considering how we should deal with the approach to reform of the Official Secrets Act. That is still the position of the Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] I agree that all Governments have been dilatory in dealing with this matter. But it will be easier to deal with such problems as we face now when there is much greater clarity on the legal situation. I believe that there are many right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House who will agree with me about that.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: The right hon. Gentleman said that there were differences of opinion within the Press, within the Government and within the House. Is there any difference of opinion about the deliberate breaking of an oath and the transmitting of Cabinet documents to an outsider?

Mr. Foot: No. I am saying that anyone who examines the whole of this matter—not the particular case here but the whole question of leakages and how they should be dealt with and the whole question of confidentiality and how it is to be protected—and says that there are no difficulties and that it is a simple question cannot have followed the controversies about the Official Secrets Act which have taken place both in this House and outside. The simplistic doctrine of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) is not a satisfactory way of approaching the problem.

Mr. Nigel Lawson: The right hon. Gentleman said that his party had pledged itself in its manifesto to reform the Official Secrets Act with special reference to Section 2. Many of us agree that that should be done. But he has had plenty of time. Why has he not introduced proposals about this?

Mr. Foot: One of the reasons is the lack of legislative time. Another reason, which I fully acknowledge, is that it is not an easy matter to resolve. I do not pretend that the Government have found


it easy to resolve the question of how we should follow up the Franks Report. We have found it difficult. But the fact that I acknowledged that should mean that the House would realise the problems involved.
I come to the particular question and to the motion—and there is no complaint on that score because the motion refers to a particular case. It refers to the Government's refusal to promise
an interim statement on the progress of the inquiry into the leakage of Cabinet papers".
I suppose that it would have been easy for me to promise to the right hon. Member for Yeovil merely to give a progress report next Thursday, even though I did not know whether I should have any progress report to make. Certainly I did not know whether there would be a progress report available for me to make. But, because I was unable to give the right hon. Gentleman the answer that he wanted, that does not mean that the Government were being dilatory, that Sir Douglas Allen was being dilatory, or that anyone else was being dilatory. There was no implication of that at all.
I was not prepared to give the right hon. Gentleman an undertaking, which I thought would be misleading, that I would be able to make a progress report in a few days' time when I did not know whether I should be able to do it. I thought that that was a candid way of treating the House. For that reason, I repudiate all the charges of dilatoriness.
But I can now tell the House—certainly it happened long after the questions put to me by the right hon. Gentleman the other day—that, before my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister left for Puerto Rico, Sir Douglas Allen gave him an up-to-date report on how far he had got with his inquiries and will let my right hon. Friend have a final report on his return from Puerto Rico. The Prime Minister will make a statement in the House when he has considered the matter.
I cannot say any more than that about the inquiries being made by Sir Douglas Allen. In my judgment, having set up the inquiry by Sir Douglas Allen, it would be improper for us in the interim to intervene and say that we had some other method of dealing with the matter. We

have to judge it on the basis of the report we receive from Sir Douglas Allen. On the basis of that report, the Government will make up their mind what should be the next step.
For that reason, I repudiate the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Yeovil which was implicit in one of his last questions that, if we did not tell him today exactly what was to happen about a report whose conclusions we had not yet received, we would be accused of shirking. It is not shirking. It is common sense. Anyone setting up an inquiry listens to what the inquiry says before deciding on the next step.
I come to the other possibilities. I am not making any judgment about them because we have to take the conclusions of the report into account before deciding what to do next. But I will comment on the suggestions made by the right hon. Member for Yeovil.

Mr. Robin Corbett: Can my right hon. Friend comment on how Mr. Adam Raphael in yesterday's Observer and others seem to have access to this interim report of Sir Douglas Allen? Was there a briefing?

Mr. Foot: So far as I know, there was no briefing. So far as I know, none of them knows what is in the interim report. Whatever may be in the interim report, when an inquiry of this nature is set up by the Head of the Civil Service, it is common sense to wait until we have the full report before deciding what action we should take about it.

Sir Anthony Royle: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that, when the Prime Minister receives the full report, the report will be published?

Mr. Foot: No. I cannot give that assurance. What I can assure the hon. Gentleman about is that, as I have said already, when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister receives the full report, he and the Government will make up their minds what they propose to do and, of course, they will report to the House both about the question of publication and about the action which they believe should follow. Then the Government and the House will be able to make up their minds. But to make up our minds on that matter now is premature. That


was my view last week when the questions were put to me by the right hon. Member for Yeovil. But, since we are now debating the matter, I give the answer that I think will be most helpful to the House.
Now I comment on one or two of the suggestions which have been made, possibly in criticism, about how we should deal with this matter. There was the proposal of the Leader of the Opposition that we should set up a tribunal of inquiry. I do not rule out any form of dealing with it. But I can hardly believe that anyone could think that a tribunal of inquiry would be the most appropriate way of dealing with such a situation. I have heard many of the debates in this House about tribunals of inquiry and how they have operated. Indeed, I have participated in many of those debates.
The Salmon Committee made investigations into how those tribunals operate. It made recommendations which were accepted by the House. These have improved the way in which tribunals operate, and possibly protected innocent individuals from the kind of trouble and difficulty in which they were plunged by the operations of some of these tribunals in previous times.
Certainly I think the Government were right not to plunge into a tribunal or inquiry of that sort, particularly when realising how many innocent people—including innocent Members of this House—were involved. An innocent member of a previous Conservative Administration was injured by the operations of one of those tribunals. We should learn from that experience.
Other people were also involved in those tribunals. For example, in the Vassall tribunal journalists refused to give evidence of their sources. I should think it extremely probable that in the present affair—indeed, it has already been stated by some of those associated with it—journalists would not reveal their sources of information. If an inquiry were to be instituted, therefore, almost automatically the editors of the newspapers concerned—New Society, The Times and others—would be placed in a similar position to that of the journalists involved in the Vassall tribunal. It would therefore be very unwise for the

Government to plunge into that course without proper consideration of what the consequences might be.
I therefore say seriously to the House that I doubt very much whether a tribunal of inquiry is the best way to deal with the matter, although I repeat that nothing is excluded.
There was also a suggestion that there should be police inquiries. As the Prime Minister said before, no possibility as to later action is excluded, but again, judging from past experience, police inquiries in these respects can also have their difficulties, and the House should understand this.
I promised not to use the argument "You did it, too", and I stand by my promise, but the right hon. Gentleman will recall that there was a leakage from his own Department which involved a newspaper, and police action against the newspaper. Very serious considerations were raised in this House whether that was the best way to proceed. Indeed, in relation to discovering the culprit, the police action in that case did not succeed. I repeat that I am not excluding the possibility that it might be taken into account, and, indeed, it is right for the Government to take all these considerations into account. But because we delayed in the sense of not taking precipitate action, as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition, and because we delayed and did not take the precipitate action suggested by the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the police, it does not mean that we did not treat the matter seriously. We did treat it seriously. We appointed the Head of the Civil Service to inquire into the matter, and we shall have to see what he suggests and recommends. That is the position in which the House is placed.
I have given an absolutely fair and open account of the position to the House. In my judgment, it would have been better to defer any debate on this matter until we had the report from Sir Douglas Allen, but it was the wish of the right hon. Gentleman and the House that we should have this debate. But the fact that the debate has been started does not mean that we can pass judgment on a report that we have not yet received. We have to wait until we receive it.

Mr. Peyton: Mr. Peyton rose—

Mr. Foot: I do not want to delay the proceedings for more than a moment or two, because no doubt hon. Members will wish to contribute to the debate. I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman before I conclude. I believe that already suggestions have been made which may be helpful, and the debate will be taken into account by the Government when they make up their mind about the recommendations or the conclusions which Sir Douglas Allen may bring forward. The House of Commons will have had the possibility of giving an interim view on the matter.

Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Gentleman has failed to understand the purpose behind the motion. It is not simply a nagging complaint that the right hon. Gentleman was not very forthcoming the other day. It is an expression of broad dissatisfaction with the Government's failure so far to show a proper depth of concern about a really deplorable development.

Mr. Foot: I repudiate any suggestion that anything I have said from the Dispatch Box today detracts in any way from what the Prime Minister said when he was speaking to the House recently on the matter, nor have I sought to withdraw anything said as to the seriousness of what occurred.
What I am describing to the House with complete candour is how we have dealt with the matter, why we rejected the courses which the right hon. Gentleman recommended, and why we think it was sensible to reject those courses, in the interests of trying to protect the confidentiality of Cabinet proceedings—I fully accept that that is essential—and also protecting the proper channels of information which have to be provided.
I repeat what I said at the beginning, and I believe that any hon. Member who faces the facts will agree with me. It is not a conflict simply between right and wrong. This is a conflict between two requirements. The first is the requirement that Ministers and Governments shall be able to conduct business in confidence, that there shall be no breach of that confidence, and that any breaches will be dealt with. The second is the demand from newspapers, and pressure from hon. Members and others, for different forms of open government.
The two requirements have to be reconciled. One way of helping to reconcile them is to ensure that in some form or other the Official Secrets Act is reformed. Another is to ensure that, when breaches occur, every effort is made to establish their cause.
I conclude by referring to what the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said in his question the other day. There is a respect in which this case is more serious than most other cases. I do not say any other case but most other cases. In this case the unauthorised publication of a Cabinet proceeding occurred much more swiftly than in any previous instance. That occurred, and that is what has to be examined.
I still believe that the caution which the Government showed, if that is the right word, or the refusal of the Government to adopt the courses recommended by the Opposition, was right. It may be that if the Opposition had been in power they would have taken a similar view. The House of Commons can come only to an interim judgment tonight. We have to wait to see what is said in Sir Douglas Allen's report. On these grounds, I hope that the House will not force a Division.

4.59 p.m.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson: The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House is saying to the House that there is no effective way of investigating this leak.
I rather agree with what he said about a tribunal of inquiry. I was a law student when the Stanley tribunal was held. Everyone knows that it damaged the innocent rather than revealed the guilt of those concerned. A tribunal of inquiry is an unsuitable vehicle for this kind of probe.
The Government have appointed a distinguished civil servant, but what can he do in the course of his inquiry? Can he get to the root of the matter? I doubt it very much indeed. If someone is so politically motivated as to make this kind of leak, the kind of question that can be asked by a civil servant, however distinguished, is unlikely to elicit the truth. It is a window-dressing operation.
There is a good deal in what the Leader of the House said in his criticism of a potential police inquiry. Nevertheless, a police inquiry is probably the most


effective inquiry open to the Government if they want to discover who stole Cabinet minutes.
In this sphere there is inadequate machinery. As the right hon. Gentleman said, we have to have regard to the public demand for more open government. One feature of this episode which requires our careful consideration is not so much the lack of depth of Government concern but the lack of depth of public concern. That is a feature which would not have occurred 25 or 30 years ago. There would have been a great outburst of public indignation at such a leak. Yet public reaction now is relatively small.

Mr. John Mendelson: I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong. The attitude of the public is influenced by the subject matter of the leak. In a leak which was concerned with looking after poor children the attitude 25 years ago would have been exactly the same as it is today.

Mr. Hooson: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that comment. This goes to the root of the problem. I am a great believer in more open government, but there is a great deal of difference between secrecy and confidentiality. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House think that confidentiality should be limited wherever possible but, if we are to have effective government, in a democratic society there is bound to be a sphere in which confidentiality is essential. The effect of what the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser) said would be to limit to the minimum the sphere where confidentiality is required. I agree, but once we have done that we must insist on the strictest rules within that sphere.
This leak, and many other leaks referred to by the Parliamentary Secretary in a public speech, are in the sphere of social justice. The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) said in his intervention that if the motivation for the leak is right, if it is concern for children, that expiates the enormity of the crime of leakage. There is a great deal of difference between open government on the one hand and leakages on the other. Leaking is a skilful use of closed government to get a certain view point across, with the person making the leak knowing

that other people who feel strongly the other way are bound by the confidentiality that he is disregarding. A leak of that kind is an attempt to manoeuvre the public and to manoeuvre a political party to a course of action which the majority of the leaders of that party in Cabinet have decided is inappropriate. Leakage is the improper use of a closed system of government to bring about a certain result, and it must be distinguished completely from the demand for more open government.
Once we tolerate leakages that are politically justifiable because they are designed to achieve a certain social end, where do we stop? A man who is tremendously motivated on a defence matter may be convinced that he is right. He will think that the oath he took does not matter and that the confidentiality that exists between his companions and himself does not matter. All that matters, he will feel, is his belief that he is right. Therefore, I totally reject the view put to me by the hon. Member for Penistone. I am all for restricting the sphere of confidentiality to the minimum, and the less closed government the better, but once we have decided the sphere, there must be rigid discipline.

Mr. John Mendelson: If the hon. and learned Gentleman rejects what I said, he must do justice to what I said. I was addressing myself to his comparison with what might have happened 25 or 30 years ago. I said that the public would have reacted 30 years ago if the leak had been concerned with children. I go further. When the Hoare-Laval Agreement was leaked the public fully approved of the leakage and would do so again.

Mr. Hooson: The hon. Gentleman cannot escape so easily. He is saying that if the motivation is right, nothing else matters. In a country such as ours, if people are strongly motivated no oath will prevent them from leaking information. What is required is a rigid code. We must safeguard our country as far as we can.
I agree with much of what the Leader of the House said. I was slightly disturbed by the confusion which he seemed to introduce between the demand for more open government and leakage. These are two entirely separate factors. He gave the impression that it does not matter—

Mr. Foot: Mr. Foot indicated dissent.

Mr. Hooson: I may have gained the wrong impression but that was the impression the right hon. Gentleman conveyed to me, and it is a bad impression to create in the country at large.
Twenty-five or 30 years ago a larger section of the public would have been much more concerned, because they believed in confidentiality and had respect for taking the oath. With the more open system we have evolved there is less regard for the taking of oaths and confidentiality. Many matters are leaked today which would not have been leaked a decade or two ago and there is less public reaction to it. We are conscious of that, and that is why I believe in the need to restrict the sphere of confidentiality, but once that is done it is important that a rigid code should apply to which there are no exceptions.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman saying that because leaking is wrong secrecy should not have been applied in this case? Is he saying that if we are opposed to leaking we cannot simultaneously say that the area of secrecy is too large? Surely not.

Mr. Hooson: Of course not. We can equally say that the area of secrecy is too large and that it should be reduced as far as possible—all modern Governments have tended to this view—but once that is done, once the area is agreed and until it is changed, a rigid rule must apply.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) that this is a serious leak which involves not only a loose tongue but larceny and the publication of Cabinet minutes. Although the motivation may be social justice, the nature of the leak is serious and this short debate is inadequate to enable us to consider all the implications. We must have a better mode of investigation. None of the three modes suggested is adequate.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I wish first to comment on the remarks of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) who said that he

and his right hon. and hon. Friends would refrain from licking their chops over this issue. I have a feeling that that was slightly hypocritical. I have the feeling that he and some of his hon. Friends are delightedly licking their chops. They have been able to delay the business on the child benefit debate for three hours which keeps the House here for three hours longer and consequently delays the business—

Mr. Peyton: That is quite inaccurate. I have taken three hours out of a Supply Day belonging to the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman used a charge which he does very lightly and which he would resent very greatly if it were used against him. He accused us of hypocrisy. I hope that he will withdraw that because the whole tenor of my speech was to make absolutely clear that I was not seeking to make partisan points against the Government but was merely calling upon them to face what is a grave problem for the nation.

Mr. Heffer: I am glad that I touched the right hon. Gentleman on the raw. [Interruption.] That is precisely what I did. I said that I felt that there was a degree of hypocrisy about his statement. I do not say that he is a hypocrite, and I have no intention of withdrawing my statement. The right hon. Gentleman said that this was not a nagging complaint but that he felt that the Government had not shown a proper depth of concern. The Leader of the House indicated very clearly that the Government have shown a proper depth of concern and have acted promptly in establishing an inquiry under a leading civil servant. Before my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister went to the Puerto Rico conference he was told by that civil servant that a statement would be made to him on his return. I should have thought that that action displayed a great and proper depth of concern.
The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends feel quite rightly that this is another opportunity to have a go at the Government. They are entitled to do that. If I were in their place I would be having a go at their Government and adopting their tactics. That is normal parliamentary practice and that it what we did or attempted to do on occasions when we were in Opposition. I remember one cowboys and Indians escapade


when we hid in a room nearby, but that was a complete failure. Nevertheless, it was legitimate parliamentary activity.
The argument about open government is a matter of the greatest concern. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that on the one hand efforts have to be made to protect Government secrecy and on the other to give the fullest information to the public at large. I should like to know what is or what is not a Government secret, what should be and what should not be a Government secret. This is an intriguing issue because there is great mystery about secrecy in government. It operates very nicely to the benefit of the Government and the Executive, and to the detriment of Back Benchers. Secrecy in government operates to the advantage of any Government whoever they are. Of course, these great secrets of government are no secrets at all. When I was a Minister I could never understand why all the documents that we received stamped "Confidential", "Top Secret" and so on—apart from the fact that lots of them had found their way into the Press already—needed to be secret.
The other myth is that members of Governments never have arguments or differences on any issue. They always have arguments. There is conflict in every Department, between Departments, between Ministers and the Prime Minister and between other Ministers. It is no good pretending otherwise. Why should we do that? Why not say to the world that Governments are composed of ordinary mortals who are there because they have been elected to the House of Commons on a programme of action and that there are differences as to the best way of carrying out that programme? I can see no reason for surrounding the Government with all this mystery.
The security of the country is, of course, of vital importance and there we must know when to draw the line. I refer, of course, to the security of our people in relation to external enemies. But we are not discussing that now. We are here concerned with the argument about whether, given the nature of the economic crisis, the child benefit scheme should be introduced now, in six months time or in a year's time. There is an economic crisis, and there is a respect-

able argument that the scheme could be postponed for a period because of it. I have no objection to knowing that there are those inside the Government who argue that point of view, and that there are others who argue to the contrary.

Mr. Angus Maude: Will the hon. Member address himself to one relevant point here? Surely he agrees that if confidentiality in discussions of that kind goes by the board, it is at least unlikely that politically unpopular lines of argument, which may still be in the national interest, will be advanced as strongly if they are to be reported verbatim in every newspaper.

Mr. Heffer: I think that the hon. Member underestimates the intelligence of our people. When issues are put and argued clearly to the people, the people then understand the real issues much more. Secrecy prevents people from knowing the real issues involved and that leads us to more difficulties than if the real issues were brought into the open in the first place.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Will my hon. Friend distinguish between the kind of material which he has described as circulating within Departments, between Departments, and between Departments and interested bodies outside on the one hand and Cabinet minutes on the other hand? Does he not accept that Cabinet minutes are in a different category and that they deal not only with the subject we are discussing but with the very matters of security and defence and the economy to which he referred earlier? Does he accept that one cannot exclude from the rules one subject in a Cabinet minute? Does he accept that what makes this case serious is that Cabinet minutes have been made available to someone?

Mr. Heffer: I hope that hon. Members will not keep interrupting me. If I am allowed to get on with my speech I shall perhaps deal with the very points that they are putting to me.
I was coming to the point that the job of those who are outside the Government—and I hope of some of those who are inside the Government, although they might argue differently—is to argue for a change in the rules. As long as the rules are as they are, however, everyone


involved, whether Cabinet Ministers, junior Ministers, civil servants or just those who take the boxes from one place to another must accept those rules and abide by them. I was in the Government for a year. I did not leak.

Mr. Tom Litterick: My hon. Friend must be unique.

Mr. Heffer: I never said a word about what happened inside that Government, although I probably sent more letters to the Prime Minister about all sorts of issues on which I was not happy than any other junior Minister. However, I did not tell the world that I was doing it. I told the world when I decided that I had had enough and wanted to say publicly that I had had enough, and I accepted the full consequences of what I did. I trust that that is an honourable position. It was attempting to be such.
However, that does not mean that we cannot use this debate to argue that the rules have to be changed. I believe that the rules must be changed. We have now reached a stage at which we must examine the whole question of the Official Secrets Act and carry out what the Labour Party said it would do—reform the Official Secrets Act. It will not mean total open government. I am not saying that one could ever get that, or that it would be right to have total open government. However, we must got a lot further along the way than we have gone so far.
Even in relation to Cabinet minutes, I am not saying that it is right that they should be published but I see no reason why at certain times it should not be known that there were differences of opinion and a line-up of forces, because that does not in any way stop the development of an argument. I think that it helps that argument and improves the case on both sides.

Mr. Litterick: Taking that point a little further, does my hon. Friend agree that where the blanket secrecy principle is used to protect the Government from the people, leaks become an inevitable instrument of Government, since, after all, most of the leaks emanate from Ministers in any case?

Mr. Heffer: One of the things that I never used to like was the fact that as a Minister—every ex-Minister knows this,

particularly from No. 10—one could bring in journalists and give them briefings, but briefings which were "not attributable". What was that particular leak? Was that a leak, or not? What was being done? Was it not using the media or journalists in the media in order to advance one particular argument, perhaps against other members of the Cabinet who were arguing along different lines? Is not that part of the manipulation? Of course it is.
My right hon. Friend the chairman of my parliamentary party, the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) interrupted me earlier. I make no complaint about that but I draw his attention to this fact. We used to have meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party upstairs. It was all secret. When one got out of the meeting and read the evening newspapers or the following day's newspapers, one found that it was all detailed therein—except that they never quite got it right. So what did we decide to do? We decided that the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party would take down what was said by everyone who spoke and would bring in the journalists afterwards and tell them what had happened. They then, of course, all lost interest. There were hardly any reports of meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
I merely leave my right hon. Friends in the Cabinet with one thought: with total open government there might be much less trouble than there is at present.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. Edward Heath: I want to intervene only briefly and for two reasons. First, it is obviously unsatisfactory to have this debate on this particular case when we have no report in front of us. The Leader of the House could, of course, perfectly well have avoided this debate. When he said earlier that it was because he was in no position even to say that there might possibly be a progress report in due course, he was displaying a somewhat uncharacteristic scrupulousness about the replies that he gives to the House.
Leaving that on one side, however, we have obviously got to wait until Sir Douglas Allen has reported. We can then consider what the Prime Minister recommends. Perhaps I may say, in


answer to some questions that have been asked by Labour Members and, indeed, from the Liberal Bench, that it is perfectly possible for Sir Douglas Allen to use whatever means he wants to inquire into this matter—provided that the Prime Minister agrees—from the security services. Every Department in Whitehall—I think now without exception—has its own security service. That can be used as far as the Department of Health and Social Security is concerned. Every Department knows that if its own security service is unable to undertake the necessary investigation to the satisfaction of itself, it can then call in the other security services in order to enable it to do so. Therefore, I do not find any difficulty about this. I hope that Sir Douglas Allen, as Head of the Civil Service and being widely experienced in these matters, will do whatever is required.
There is another aspect about it, though, which I am afraid is permanently associated with such matters: as the Civil Service itself may be involved, and the outside world and the Press see that the Head of the Civil Service is to make the inquiry, for some reason or other it may be felt that it cannot be as absolutely thorough as would be desirable, or it may even be suggested—I believe unjustly—that there could be an attempt to cover-up. Therefore, one has to consider whether there is any other possible way of looking at these matters in the future.
Here the difficulty arises that one has either the 1921 Tribunal of Inquiry—and from my own experience, I agree very much with what the Lord President said—or one brings in someone from outside who may not be as well qualified as someone such as the Head of the Civil Service for the simple reason that he does not know the workings of Whitehall and does not know his way about. It is a very narrow matter of balance as to what is the best way in the first instance of dealing with these matters. I support the Prime Minister, on balance, in asking Sir Douglas Allen to make this inquiry.
When it comes to the other so-called leaks which have been mentioned, I thought that the Prime Minister was fair enough to say that the present Government are about on a par with the previous Government in such matters. If hon.

Members want to go back further, they can look at the Labour Government of 1964–70. They will find that all Governments are faced with these problems.
The second reason why I wanted to make a few comments is that what we are discussing is only the surface of this matter. What we very much require is a full debate on this, dealing with the question of the Official Secrets Act and the measures which should be taken to deal with secrecy and confidentiality in Government. I agree with the Lord President that the problems of dealing with this matter are immense.
Nevertheless, there has been the report in which certain very clear proposals were made. In my judgment at the time and the judgment of my advisers they were not entirely satisfactory for meeting the case—nor did the Press find them satisfactory. However, there is a basis from which the Government can start, and I urge them to deal speedily with this question because the absence of any action, the vacuum that we have, means that it is infinitely more difficult to deal with a particular case such as this one.
I am glad that the Lord President has endorsed what the Prime Minister said—that this is a unique case. I believe it to be so, not only historically. Other cases have been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Hugh Fraser), but at that time there were no Cabinet minutes. This is a unique case.
When I look at all the proposals made for dealing with this problem, I do not see how one can distinguish one part of a Cabinet discussion from another part. Therefore, whatever other action one takes, one must maintain that the minutes of the Cabinet are confidential and must be kept so. The problem that arises if this is not maintained—as I gather one or two Labour Members have in mind—is, first, that members around the table will not discuss the great issues as freely as they would otherwise do, and secondly, this leads to a small number of the members of the Cabinet themselves taking each particular item of importance together and saying "This is the decision we shall have. We have agreed it among ourselves, and now the Cabinet will have to accept it." That is not a satisfactory way of handling matters, but that is what follows inevitably if Cabinet dis-


cussion cannot be kept confidential. This is a unique matter. Whatever other action is proposed, we should keep it so.
I come briefly to other proposals which ought to be considered. One could reach a considerable measure of agreement on certain things. First, on foreign affairs and defence, there are aspects of both that are vital to our security and our relations with other countries. I should have thought that it would be possible to have general agreement, and for the Press to accept, that this should be a security matter. If the Press wishes to deal with a particular aspect because it thinks that an aspect of security should have a public airing because the Government are being negligent or because the Services are not being competent, it has a machinery to deal with that. It is a joint machinery and it has worked well. This is an area on which we could agree.
Secondly, there is the question of individual privacy. When I was Prime Minister I was constantly pressed on this matter by the Opposition, in particular by those who were worried about the use of computers—for example, computers in the social services. People were worried that the information which was acquired and stored would in some way become available to the Press or to others who might be interested. I should have thought that we could be absolutely clear that this is one field which must also remain confidential—information affecting individuals throughout the social services.
The third field is that of commercial activity which affects, in particular, the Department of Trade and Industry. In one of the 37 cases I asked the House for support in setting up a Tribunal of Inquiry into the case of the Vehicle and General Insurance Company because the ramifications of the deliberate leakage of commercial information in that case were very considerable. It affected the finances of institutions, dealings in shares, and so on.
This did not alter the fact that the Department very properly went through all the procedures. Its own security people were called in. They called in outside security people. They found out who were responsible for the leakage. The whole matter went to the tribunal. It reported, and the necessary action was

taken to deal with the matter from the point of view of legislation to deal with insurance companies. I quite agree that there were individuals who suffered greatly from that tribunal being held, but on balance it was justified.
The next subject is budgetary, financial and exchange matters affecting the Treasury. On those four categories I believe that agreement could be reached.
Where, then, is the difference? The difference is: are not the Government entitled in their machinery to be able to discuss their affairs from the point of view of forward planning and to reach decisions before the whole matter is made public? This is where there is a clear difference between Government on the whole and the Press. I engaged in informal discussions to see whether we could bridge the gap. It proved impossible. It may not be so in future—there may be a way.
I agree that on the whole the machinery of government tends to be too secretive and to adopt a self-defensive posture. Deliberate action must be taken to prevent that from developing into greater and greater secrecy.
A Government should be able through their civil servants and Ministers to discuss certain matters and discuss all the options and discard some which are irrelevant to their policies without having the whole blazoned abroad as decisions of Government or what a Government are to do.
I come to the real point of open government. I believe that it is desirable for a Government to put before the country the options available in as many spheres as possible of individual items of policy. Next, Governments should report on their day-to-day working as fully as possible. Here I regret to have to become contentious. I believe that this should all be done on the record. I believe that the fact that so much is done on the "unattributable" system or through the "Lobby" system and then reported as being fact is undesirable and contributes to the general atmosphere of secrecy, suspicion and uncertainty. I believe that it is much better that it should be done on the record clearly—whether it begins from No. 10, from a Minister's office, or by a spokesman.
I attempted to do that in dealing with the incomes policy. I hope that the Lord President of the Council will agree that I was greatly criticised for doing so and was accused of attempting presidential-style government. It did not worry me. I think that on further reflection the right hon. Gentleman will find that to go openly on the record in discussing Government action, day-to-day as well as longer term, would remove many of the temptations which now cause trouble.
We now have two developments which mean the Governments of both parties are getting the worst of all worlds. We have, first, insight journalism which claims to be the correct account in detail of everything that happened. It is of course no such thing, because the information is not available to the insight journalist.
I have just had experience of this with three articles in the Sunday Times dealing with events alleged to have led up to the happenings of February 1974. It is quite true that I refused to take part in any interview, because I knew this could not be a complete account, because they had no access to records or to anything else.
We are also getting reconstruction television. I think that this in many ways is the worst of the lot, because we now have a mock Committee Room on television and people put there who may be actors or who may be Members and they purport to tell us on the television what individual Ministers are suppposed to have said and the views they held. In my view, they have little justification for what they say. In this respect I differ from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) who says that all this works for the benefit of the Government. I believe that insight journalism and reconstruction television not only does damage to a Government but it does damage to politics.
The only action that I can see which can be taken is for Governments to be as forthcoming as they can on the record in day-to-day working and to give everything possible in the way of options for longer-term planning. In that way they will create a much healthier atmosphere and some of these problems, though not all of them, will be greatly diminished.
What is essential now, apart from the report to the Prime Minister and his report to the House, is for the Government to deal with the other much wider matter and make up their minds about it, for them to bring it to the House and then for everyone to say clearly those parts of government which deal with information which we are determined to protect and the others about which Governments will give day-to-day information.
I acknowledge that if action is taken over this case there will not be a great deal of public sympathy for the Government. Most people will say—"It is about children. It is of interest to all of us. People had their views and of course they expressed them. Why should not we know what they were?"
I acknowledge that the great diivisions over Europe among members of the present Cabinet which were exposed at the, time of the referendum did not damage them—it did not damage them in the various ways that I had been hoping! I have to draw conclusions from that.
I maintain my position that the theft of a Cabinet document of this kind is a unique case and that the confidentiality of Cabinet discussions must be maintained. At the same time I believe that the Government must now deal with the much wider field. Until they do so we shall continue with this uncertain and unsatisfactory situation.

5.37 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Price: The right hon. Member for Sid-cup (Mr. Heath) has made a very genuine contribution to the ultimate settlement of this problem. Once again we have the unofficial Opposition to thank for a serious contribution which I fear we did not get from the official Opposition.
This was not a leak which the Press was particularly digging to find out. It occurred because there was a genuine conflict between party and Government. As long as political parties fight by-elections on specific manifestos this type of problem will occur on many occasions.
I believe that it would have been much better if the Government had been far more open about the disagreements and the difficulties that were involved in implementing the child benefit scheme immediately. If they had been, none of


the trouble would have occurred. Having said that, I must say to the official Opposition that in tabling the motion they will be seen by the general public to be making a great mountain out of a molehill. The House misunderstands public opinion if we go on saying that this is an intensely serious matter. If we believe that by a new set of rules, an amendment to the Official Secrets Act, we can keep the lid on the dustbin and prevent these facts from coming out on important occasions, we completely deceive ourselves.
In the exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), the Hoare-Laval Pact was mentioned. Secrets such as that come out. One could also mention the collusion over Suez and various other matters, such as the attempts of the Labour Government of 1966–70 to sell arms to South Africa. Such secrets come out because among those who know them are people who are so affronted by the decision that they regard their loyalty to the matter to which they are dedicated as far higher than any oath of secrecy they have taken. That is a fact of human nature which will occur with many Government decisions. No amount of rules applied by the House will stop it.
The people who revealed the secrets about which we are talking, from child benefits back through Suez to the Hoare-Laval Pact, were fundamentally honourable men who believed that they were doing an honourable thing. Whether we want to take a high moral line or the more realistic line which I am pleased my right hon. Friend took, it is true that when individuals are affronted, truth will out, whatever we in this House say.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Does the hon. Gentleman apply that code of honour or dishonour to members of the Cabinet and those senior members of the Civil Service who process Cabinet papers? Is he saying that their sense of moral outrage is sufficient to justify their breaking the oath?

Mr. Price: Never having been either, I am not an expert on either. But I have been a journalist attending confidential ministerial briefings. If I were a Minister giving confidential, pretty well

verbatim, blow-by-blow accounts of what is happening in discussions in the Department and the Cabinet, I should feel that there was a severe problem in leaking matters of that kind. I do not know who leaked the document, and nobody else does, but where such leaks occur it is not for the sort of reason suggested by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), that the document might have been sold and that it was leaked for money. It is done for honour. If the right hon. Gentleman knew anything about that impoverished and struggling weekly journal, New Society, and the measly fees it offers, he would not suggest that anyone who had stolen Cabinet minutes would try to sell them to it.

Mr. Hooson: Whilst the hon. Gentleman may be right in his description of the motivation, surely if a Cabinet Minister or civil servant feels so strongly about the matter he can resign, rather than use his job to provide information to journalists secretly.

Mr. Price: I very much agree. I do not think that I shall ever be a Cabinet Minister, but if I were and I felt outraged, that is the course of action I should take.
I see that the right hon. Member for Yeovil has left the Chamber already—

Mr. Maude: My right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) asked me to say that he had to attend a meeting of a Select Committee, and he also asked me to apologise for him. He will not be away too long.

Mr. Price: I accept that apology, but perhaps I may say one other thing in response to what the right hon. Gentleman said about political advisers. There have been many unjustified attacks on political advisers by the Opposition over this whole business. Many of us on the Labour Benches believe that the whole point of the debate is to get at political advisers, who I believe have made the Labour Government from 1974 onwards far more effective than the 1966–70 Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "That does not say much."] History will judge. One of the reasons why we have effectively carried out our manifesto is that side by side with our Ministers, and often arguing with established civil


servants who have established conservative viewpoints, we have political advisers who are putting forward our manifesto point of view.
All Goverments talk about open government. The value of this debate is that from the right hon. Member for Sidcup and one or two other hon. Members we learn the framework within which more open government may flourish. I have just returned from Norway, where the Environment Minister and the Foreign Minister, both Labour politicians, conducted a virtual television debate about a matter which was being discussed in the Cabinet—whether Norway should continue to exploit the oil in the very far North Sea, a vital matter to Norway. It was an example of open government which I find is now taken for granted in places such as Norway and Sweden. They cannot imagine a Government being conducted in any other way.
We are still suffused with ideas of our imperialist past, when perhaps we had some very important secrets to keep throughout government. Our system of government, in terms of openness, is completely out of phase with the needs of a highly sophisticated and educated electorate, who want to take part in government far more and who could be used far more in the day-to-day decisions of government.
I hope that if the debate does nothing else it will lead my right hon. Friend to try to induce some of his colleagues who are not so keen as he is on open government to take it seriously, and I hope that he will leak liberally how his discussions are going.

5.48 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: I entirely disagree with the analysis by the Leader of the House that this is a debate about the rights of secrecy against the wrongs of secrecy. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) that the debate is not about secrecy but about trust and honesty. What has happened is that someone who gave his word that he would keep his word deliberately broke it. It is not a question of whether secrecy is good. It is a question of whether cheating, lying and breaking one's word is a good thing.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Is my hon. and learned Friend referring to the person who leaked the Cabinet minutes or to the antecedent question of the "betrayal of trust" and "breach of a voluntary undertaking"—to use the Prime Minister's words—given by the Government, and the decision in the Cabinet brought about by giving a false impression of how Labour Members felt and of the trade union position?

Mr. Fairbairn: I am referring to the person who leaked the document, whether a member of the Cabinet, another Minister, a civil servant or whoever. It is inevitable that there was a deliberate breach of his word. To him there is a rule of ethics which says that there is something higher than trust and honesty. I find that an obnoxious doctrine. One loathsome characteristic which we have imported from America is that if one loses the game one just breaks the rules, that if one loses the political argument one just cheats and tries to win it later, that there are political objectives higher than keeping one's word. The safety of no country, far less the morality, can be guaranteed, or even supported, if there are those who say that, in order to achieve their political objectives, no dishonesty, no lie, no breach of trust or no theft is too much.
The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) suggested that there are, so to speak, good breaches of trust. I do not believe that the House can allow the principle to be departed from. Trust must be absolute. It has nothing to do with whether the system, and the extent of secrecy, should be changed. The fact is that a major breach of trust for a political objective has been committed by somebody high in Government circles. The House must be seen to condemn it.
What is perhaps even more nauseating is that the person to whom the information was passed has now developed the marvellous argument that, unfortunately, he cannot breach his trust and tell us who it was that breached his trust and gave him the information. Trust is just spun as a coin at any moment by people to achieve the political objective they want.
There is no political objective which would make it proper to breach trust. I have been the recipient of many professional trusts. I could have sold them


perfectly easily, and no one would ever have known where they came from. But if one's word is not kept when an oath is given, ultimately all human society is threatened. I think that my constituency predecessor, Lord Home, was given advice at Oxford that if a man said his word was as good as his bond, one should take his bond.
We are concerned here with a man who gave his word as good as his word but deliberately cheated and breached that trust, and a high trust at that. The Prime Minister has asked him to own up. He is not a journalist, he does not have to protect his sources, but he has not the honesty and integrity to defend the position in which he has put himself. If he regards himself as morally superior in breaching a trust on behalf of children, let him come forward, let us see this shining saint, let him defend himself, let him come forward and lose his job on behalf of children as well.
The House should call on all those involved in breach of trust in this case, or in any other, to own up. I know what the inquiry will result in—"Terribly sorry, old chap. So honourable are these people who broke their word that they are not willing to own up and keep their word." They are such honourable men that not only do they betray their colleagues but they are not willing to expose themselves. That is the important principle with which we are dealing with in this debate—an absolute moral law which cannot be breached. It certainly cannot be breached by those who have devious or doubtful political motivations, mostly of an extreme kind. I, therefore, take the view that it is not too high to say that any person who is a traitor to trust to the extent of giving his word in the knowledge that he will break it when it suits him creates a condition of government so serious that it must be condemned by all, including the Leader of the House. We cannot in any circumstances tolerate a breach of that principle.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Robert Mellish: The hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) is right to say that this theft and disclosure of information is unique. However, I am not sure why we are having the debate today. I agree with my right

hon. Friend the Leader of the House in that I am not sure what we are trying to achieve. An inquiry is being conducted by a very distinguished civil servant. What we say today will be more apt when the report is available and we discuss what I hope will be the implications of that serious report.
I do not believe that this distinguished civil servant will find out who did it. I do not think he is that clever, but good luck to him in trying to find out. What I hope will emerge from the report is a way in which we can proceed in a situation of this kind, when a document such as this is given publicity.
The document that we are now talking about is not what I would regard, on the experience I have, as being as highly classified as many others. I was a member of the Cabinet for two and a half years—enough to learn that it is a highly responsible job and that it was a proud thing to be a member. Defence matters, matters concerning the Foreign Office, and statements made by our ambassadors abroad were not circulated, save that they were placed on the table for members of the Cabinet to read and were then collected and taken away. They were not distributed. Many other documents, understandably, are distributed throughout the whole of the Government service. When I was at a lower rank, as Minister of Public Building and Works, it used to be the practice in my private office for people to come in and say "These are Cabinet papers. Perhaps you will read them and return them immediately to us." I would do just that, they would be taken away, and I never quite knew what happened to them after that. I assume that they were locked up somewhere and then returned to the Cabinet.
A document of that kind would receive an enormous circulation. There can be no doubt—there is obviously a weakness here—that if someone, whoever it might be, decided to use information from one of those documents to his or her political advantage, or for a particular point of view, he, or she, could do so. I concede what has been said earlier, because there is a difference here in what is called a leak. We all know about that. It is a very human thing. A man or woman will leak a point of view to a journalist. Although it may have been taken at Cabinet, or some other high level, nevertheless he


or she wants to show what a magnificent fight was put up before the idea was defeated. That is a human thing to do, and it goes on a great deal under all Governments. I do not think that whatever we devise will ever stop that sort of human frailty.
The hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) has written a book on the subject, too. What are we talking about when hon. Members refer to "open government"? How do we find out what we mean? Parliament itself is very jealous if it reads something which is given to a newspaper before Parliament is told. How often do we hear "On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it right that we should read this in the papers this morning before Parliament is told?"—because some shocking Minister had the impertinence to tell the Press at 11 o'clock that day what he thought the Press and public ought to know but he did not tell Parliament first. It is a difficult matter, and I hope that something will come out of the report which is to be produced by this eminent civil servant to guide us on what can be done to achieve certain limitations about what is really secret argument in Cabinet. If it does that, it will be justified.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) put a good case from his point of view in a courteous way. I hope that he will not vote at 7 o'clock, because, if he does, I shall not know what we are voting about. There is no report, and until we have the report we do not know what is in it. We do not even know whether the culprit will be discovered. As I say, I doubt it. It is a futile exercise. With the greatest respect, Mr. Speaker, I was shattered—although, of course, it is a matter only for you—when you decided that a case had been made for a debate under Standing Order No. 9. I could not believe it when I heard it. However, we have this abortive debate, if I may so call it, and some good may come out of it.
I had only two and a half years' experience in Cabinet—perhaps that does not give one enough experience—but my own feeling is that the Cabinet of which I was proud to be a member was basically a body which kept its oath. It did not leak. It had fierce and bitter debates. I heard in that Cabinet Room

the highest standard of political debate that I have ever heard in my political career. This party will row about almost anything; it is our strength and our weakness. But at the end of the day decisions have been made known quickly, and as a result there has been no opportunity for anyone to leak.
Those who talk about open government should define what they mean. Certain things which go on in government at certain stages must remain confidential to the Government: otherwise there can be no future for any Government anywhere. So it comes back to the personal integrity of the man or woman involved. If it can be discovered who did this, I have no hesitation in saying that he or she should be not only sacked but, if possible, prosecuted.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Crawford: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) will probably be as surprised as I am when I say that I agree with almost everything he said. I should declare a marginal interest as a member of the National Union of Journalists. In my full-time occupation as a journalist it was clear to me that information and access to it was the stock-in-trade of that profession. I am sure that the Leader of the House would agree with that. I do not agree with the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) that a journalist has a duty to disclose his sources. That is not possible or right.
We are making a large mountain out of a small molehill in this debate. Everyone would agree that information and access to information and the right to express what one derives from that information is an inalienable right, subject of course to the usual caveats about defence and foreign affairs and the security of the Realm.
The question that comes to my mind in this context is, cui bono? For whose good were the minutes released? I do not like the word "leaked": it is too pejorative. Is the world a poorer place for the releasing of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg? I do not think so. That is the closest analogy that I can think of.
If these documents had not been released, I wonder whether we would have


been debating this subject tonight. There is much talk of companies having to disclose commercial, perhaps competitive, information, not only to shareholders but to the general public because companies should be publicly accountable and play a part in the social audit. If that is so, a fortiori more information about the Government should be made available to the governed. Obviously more of the public are affected by Government thinking, whether at an early stage in Cabinet or later on the Floor of the House, than are affected by commercial decisions taken by companies.
We in the Scottish National Party envisage that a Scottish Assembly or Parliament will have much more open working than the corridors of this place. In mentioning Norway and Sweden, the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) had a very fair point. People there accept open government of their type, with Cabinet Ministers debating in public and on television measures which may well not yet be before their legislatures.
We shall have a written Bill of Rights in Scotland. I hope that part of it will give access to information of this type at an early stage—perhaps at Cabinet stage. With such a Bill of Rights, we should not even be debating an issue like this. The United Kingdom as at present constituted needs a Bill of Rights now. There are disadvantages, of course, but there are also many advantages. It would be one way of modifying the Official Secrets Act. The sooner that Act is reviewed the better.
We shall certainly have a Bill of Rights and a modified Official Secrets Act. I would say, with a twinkle in my eye, that a self-governing Scotland might be able to give a lead in this matter to our friends and neighbours in England.

Mr. F. P. Crowder: The hon. Member speaks as a journalist. I understand institutions of that sort refusing to give the name of the person who has given information. However, since he works in Fleet Street, as the Leader of the House used to do, could he give us some indication of the sort of sum of money he would pay for information like this which is undoubtedly leaked?

Mr. Crawford: In all my journalistic experience, I never offered any money to any informant.

Mr. Crowder: Could not the hon. Member suggest a sum?

Mr. Crawford: I did not actually work in Fleet Street. I worked as a journalist in Scotland. This practice is very rare, if it exists at all.

6.6 p.m.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I wish to raise a mildly dissenting voice against the view expressed by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, to the effect that what we are debating is an immensely grave and serious matter. Like the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) I also wonder whether we are debating this subject at the appropriate time. I tend towards the view that we are making a mountain out of a molehill.
I see this leak as just the latest ludicrous scene in the 75-year-old Whitehall farce of excessive official secrecy. Perhaps the one urgent aspect of this so-called emergency debate is that it has brought everyone's attention to the fact that it is high time that we rang down the curtain on the Official Secrets Act of 1911, which is the Ark of the Covenant, which still ordains all the rules of Government secrecy and confidentiality. Unless those rules are soon changed sensibly and rationally, in the interests both of preserving essential Government confidentiality and of creating great openness for the Press and public, unsatisfactory episodes like this will continue.
We must be careful to stress that two different and conflicting interests are at stake here. The Leader of the House referred to this in an interesting passage in his speech about balance. The interests are the Government interest and the public interest. They are not one and the same, as some Ministers would like to pretend. I would go so far as to say that the public interest seems to have been well served by the child benefit leak in New Society.
What are the two principal revelations that Mr. Frank Field, the principal mover in this affair, has brought to the attention of the public? First, we learn that the scheme was sabotaged by some manoeuvrings by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, in his capacity as go-between between the Trades Union Congress and the


Cabinet, acted in a manner that can only be described as devious. Secondly, it was brought to our atttention that the final blow to the child benefit scheme was struck not by Ministers or Members of Parliament but by trade union bosses, who agreed to crush the scheme by what I can only describe as their typical male chauvinist reactions of hostility to the realisation that father's pay packets would be reduced in order to pay child benefit to mothers.
Both these matters and the decision-making process that led up to them deserve the spotlight of publicity. It is very much in the public interest that those facts should be known. As for the Government interest, I can see that the Government were gravely embarrassed by these revelations. But embarrassment and security are not one and the same thing.
Obviously the Government will want to pursue their investigations into the identity of Mr. Frank Field's "Deep Throat" with the utmost vigour, and if they catch him they will be right to punish him for a serious breach of trust and confidence. Perhaps an appropriate punishment would be to send him back to sing in the Rhondda Valley. But all this is the Government's business. It is not the business of the Opposition or the public to join in the witch hunt. It is not our job to help the Government over the consequences of their incompetence in preserving confidentiality, unless, of course, real interests of vital national security are at stake.
If the Government want to preserve their confidentiality effectively, as they must, there are many good ways to do this. They could start by employing only Ministers, civil servants and political advisers who can keep their mouths shut. What the Government should not try to do is to try to crack a nut with a sledge-hammer every time an awkward secret leaks out that has no relevance to national security.
That is what they are trying to do in this massive inquiry headed by Sir Douglas Allen. I am surprised at the reticence of the Leader of the House on the subject of where Sir Douglas Allen's report has got to, because after some contact over the weekend with the Whitehall branch of the Rhondda Valley

Choral Society I have managed to learn that the short list of people suspected of this leak has been narrowed to 30, because one of the papers quoted by Mr. Frank Field was not a Cabinet minute, which has a wider circulation than 30, but an annex to a Cabinet minute, which has a much more limited circulation. But even so, how can the police or the security advisers hope to crack a short list of 30 if people are determined to resist giving the information?
My information is that there is no question of any photocopying, no question of the selling of a document, and no question of theft. I advise the Government's plumbing squad to look at the Marvin case in 1878 if they are interested in knowing the way in which the information might have leaked, and they will see the difficulties that they will have in tracing the route of it.
The Government are creating a quicksand for themselves if they go on trying to cope with the problem of preserving Government confidentiality—which is a right thing to wish to preserve, particularly for Cabinet papers—if they try to do this without reforming the Official Secrets Act, because Section 2 of that Act is now a broken and unusable reed. The Government admitted as much when they refused to use it in the Crossman Diaries case, and Lord Goodman's article in yesterday's Observer was an admirable illustration of that.
The pantomime of double standards will continue over Government leaks if that Act is not reformed urgently. Indeed, we are soon going to need an Official Secrets Relations Board to deal with cases of unfair discrimination under that Act. Why is there so much fuss about New Society's disclosure when there was no fuss about Granada Television's World in Action programme on "Chrysler and the Cabinet" which revealed many Cabinet secrets and verbatim accounts of what was said? Why was no action taken, and not even questions asked of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), when he revealed the full text of the Hawley Report on immigration? Why was there no meaningful effort to trace the source of the leaks flowing out of the devolution unit? Why has the loquacious hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Price) not been asked to supply the list


of names of all the untrustworthy and garrulous Ministers to whom he referred?
We have here an Augean stables of hypocrisy, double standards and double dealing that need to be cleaned out by a firm commitment to open government and new rules. The Government are in an impossible position. On the one hand, if they get a leak that they regard as serious, they are in the position in which they have either to throw down the gauntlet and prosecute, and that makes them look absurd, or to throw in the sponge and do nothing about it, and that, too, makes them look absurd. Either reflex action is ludicrous. The only way to settle this affair is by reforming the Official Secrets Act without delay.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. Robin Corbett: Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) and the hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken), I am puzzled to know why we are having this debate. We do not have the report, and no doubt when we have it and the statement from the Prime Minister there will, quite legitimately, be a demand for yet another debate to go over the ground again. Perhaps the difference on that occasion will be that we shall know more about the subject that we are debating.
I think that this House would receive more credit if it were less concerned at saving the embarrassed face of the Government for a change of mind on the child benefit scheme and more concerned about whether it was right in the first place that this material, the subject of the inquiry, should almost wantonly have had the "Secret" stamp appended to it. I should like to think that we in this House are not so supine as to say that every time the Government tell us that something is secret we shall go along with it and not question it, because if the Government say so it must be right. I hope that, increasingly, whatever the colour of the Government, hon. Members will not take that attitude.
Reference has been made to the need for trust and honesty. I accept that absolutely, but trust and honesty do not amount to a one-way street with signs put up by the Government. The matter works both ways. The electorate have a right to trust and honesty, and when

decisions taken by the Government not only fly in the face of a commitment in a successful election manifesto but go against the expressed wishes of the House that has passed enabling legislation, it is my view that the electorate have a right to that trust and honesty, and to be told candidly the reasons why the Government have had a change of mind.
The Government maintain that they have a case for their point of view, and I accept that, but if that is so, why was the case not argued before the thousands of poor families who will be the suffererers because of this change of mind? I hope—there has been no hint of it so far—that there will be no call for a witch hunt of either civil servants or journalists. I am not experienced in the ways of this House or the workings of Whitehall, but it is right that the old-fashioned dictum of Ministers taking responsibility for what happens in their Departments should hold, and often they take responsibility for the brief rather than the leak.
It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson)—the then Prime Minister—who, some years ago, went on record as saying that one man's leak was another man's briefing, and indeed the entire system by which any Government operate is an organised system of leaking. It used to be known as forced feeding by those employed by newspapers. I am perhaps the only hon. Member who, having been a journalist, was once summoned by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Office to another great Department of State where a Press conference was called to deny a report, over my name, in the paper on which I was working. The purpose was to tell the assembled multitude that all this was wrong, villainous and totally inaccurate. I was asked whether I would print an apology, and that the person concerned was coming to the House to wipe my name all over the papers. That was followed, only a fortnight later, by a statement that what I had said would happen was to happen.
Many journalists are employed specifically and quite honourably to find out what the Government want kept secret. That is a legitimate and important part of the rôle of the Press. Indeed, in so doing, the Press is often deluged with information


on a non-attributable basis, and much of the information with which it is supplied on that basis either must be secret, because it is currently before the Cabinet or is soon expected to go before the Cabinet. This information is known in the business as kite-flying, and those who get mixed up in this system are able to deduce with great skill how long is the string on that kite. I think that it is not a question of paying for information, because journalists are paid for their stories and they like to see their names in print.
The House should be much more concerned about, for example, something reported in The Times today, under the by-line of Miss Pat Healy, the social services correspondent, which reveals that there is in existence at the Department of Health and Social Security a code that is used by the social security staff as the basis on which it uses the discretion that we have given it when deciding whether to admit claims.
Literally thousands of people—perhaps millions—are affected by what is written in this so called A code, which can make the difference between a claim being granted or refused. Knowledge of it by the claimant could also mean earlier payment and more help in such matters as children's clothing and shoes. Knowledge of it could help deserted wives to light the prospect of being evicted from their homes because their husbands have defaulted on mortgage payments. There are about 5,000 separate instructions in this A code, and apparently an equal number in other codes.
There is an AX code as well, which covers cases of fraud in alleged cohabitation—and an unbelievable V code; I am not sure what that stands for. It is so secret that we do not know what it is intended to deal with.
What excuse have either Front Bench, both of whom have been in government, for keeping this kind of information secret from claimants who are in need—often extremely urgent need—and denying them the information on which to prosecute their legitimate claims against social security? Is this secrecy not a matter of real concern to the House, concerned as it is with giving additional help to the disadvantaged and to the poorer families in our society?
I attach no importance whatsoever to this leak. I congratulate Mr. Paul Barker, the editor of New Society, on his courage in using this material and publishing the article. It is a shameful decision that had this material classified as secret in the first place. I only hope that my right hon. Friend and others concerned will now review the documents on which they so easily and automatically put the stamp of secrecy, so that we can begin to develop a system in which we trust the electorate and encourage an informed electorate, which can use that information as the basis on which to make serious and sensible decisions.

6.21 p.m.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett), who spoke with passion and sincerity, should have congratulated anyone on having broken the law of this country. I understand his passion. I, too, was a journalist for many years, but I ask him to consider whether, standing in this House, he should endorse any action which was based in the first instance on the breach of an oath of office, on the purloining of papers, and on the conveying of those papers, in breach of the law of England, to another person. I am sorry that he should have felt it right to congratulate anyone on doing that.

Mr. Corbett: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the editor of New Society is guilty of the matters to which the hon. Gentleman has referred? If there was the slightest hint of a security risk in his obtaining those documents, surely the D notice system would have been involved?

Mr. Griffiths: What the hon. Gentleman does not realise is that Cabinet papers are often all of a piece. It may be difficult, virtually impossible, to separate from one Cabinet meeting to the next the many items on the agenda. The serious matter that we are debating today is the fact that there exists a person with access to Cabinet papers, who is prepared, no doubt for sincere reasons, to make those papers available to others in breach of the law.
It can be argued that Burgess, Maclean and Mr. Philby provided confidential material which they obtained in this country to the enemies of Britain because they genuinely believed that the acquisition by


the Soviet Union of nuclear secrets would balance up the power between East and West, and that, in their twisted view, this could lead to peace. No doubt, that was the rationalisation that led them to believe that they were justified in conveying secret information.
The hon. Gentleman, however, should recognise that if there exists a person who can steal one kind of Cabinet paper in respect of subjects like child allowances on which he feels so strongly, equally such person can and probably does have access to Cabinet papers on other matters—on defence and nuclear technology. By the same token he would be in a position to pass on those papers, too.
I hope the hon. Gentleman will realise that this is not a matter in which one can defend the crime by reference to the criminal's motive or by reference to the content of the Cabinet papers. That which is confidential to the Cabinet, regardless of the subject matter and regardless of the motivation of those who are custodians of those papers, must remain confidential to the Cabinet. Oherwise there can be no trust between colleagues in Government and no trust among outsiders who provide confidential information to Government in the belief that their confidences will be respected.

Mr. Robert Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case, but he should not fall into the trap of saying that there are absolutely no grounds on which material from the Cabinet should be leaked. If there were an attempt by a Cabinet to mislead the House or the country or to breach our democratic principles, would not that be a point at which a line might be drawn?

Mr. Griffith: There is a very conclusive answer to that. The Cabinet is a collection of many people with different views. If it became apparent to members of the Cabinet that some of their colleagues were arranging to do a cheat on the House of Commons or to take extra-constitutional action which would lead to a coup, I have confidence that, in all British Governments, there would be enough members who would resign and would come out of such a Cabinet and thereby deal with the danger which the hon. Gentleman foresees.
In the remaining nine minutes that my right hon. Friend has allowed to me, I wish to make three points.
One concerns the specific matter which has given rise to this debate. We have had much horizontal extension of the subject matter, but the precise matter before us is this. Someone in breach of his oath and of his instructions has made away with a Cabinet paper and has taken it elsewhere for motives that none of us can judge. That is by any measure a State crime. A State crime deserves to be regarded with the utmost seriousness. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House of Commons spoke of various ways of looking at this problem. He said that it is a conflict of right with right. With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, although I agree that it is a difficult matter across the whole range of Government confidentiality, I do not believe there can possibly be two ways of looking at the precise question before us. Was this or was this not a State crime? I believe that the right hon. Gentleman is bound to say that, on the evidence available so far, it looks as if it was, and that requires to be dealt with the utmost urgency.
The second specific matter is the statement of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Price) who said, with disarming frankness, that we are in this country in the presence of deliberate and. I think he said, malicious leaks of Cabinet decisions. I do not believe that there could be a more serious charge than that—a deliberate and malicious leaking of Cabinet decisions for doubtful political purposes. This is bound to throw doubt on the integrity of any British Government. It certainly accuses a large number of innocent people in the Civil Service and elsewhere of a crime against which they are in no position to defend themselves.
Above all, what it says to our people is this: at a time when both central Government and local government are forcibly abstracting from the citizen more and more private information which ought to belong to him and to no one else, at a time when private companies are increasingly coerced—as they will be soon by the National Enterprise Board and the planning agreements—to provide confidential material to the State, the Minister principally responsible for information


policy has told us that that information, once it is assembled in Whitehall, can be the subject of deliberate and malicious leaks for doubtful political purposes. That is a very serious matter.
It must also be a serious matter for those allied Governments who increasingly, if NATO is to standardise its armaments, must share with the British Government more and more highly confidential information. Yet the Minister primarily responsible for co-ordinating information has said that our Government are riddled with deliberate and malicious leakers.
The Prime Minister has a duty to say whether or not he accepts the diagnosis of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office as to what is going on. If he does, he must take very much more serious steps than merely to appoint Sir Douglas Allen. If the Parliamentary Secretary is correct, the Prime Minister must take a serious view of the risk to all the confidential material in Whitehall and must deal with the matter as a whole. Alternatively, the Parliamentary Secretary, whom I regard with affection, has overstated his case. In that case the Prime Minister has a duty to those whose confidential data is now at risk in Whitehall to reassure them by repudiating, or at least revising, many of the more extravagant phrases used by the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Heffer: The gist of the hon. Gentleman's remarks is that it is a member of the Government who is responsible for the leaks. Why should it not be a civil servant, a member of the Tory Party? It may not be, but why should we jump to any conclusions till the result of the inquiry is known?

Mr. Griffiths: I have reached no such conclusion. I have not the faintest idea who was responsible. We are in the presence of an action by somebody, whether it be a civil servant or a Minister, who is engaged in a systematic, deliberate and malicious operation of leaking for political purposes. It may involve a responsible member of the Government or a civil servant, or both. Therefore, the matter needs to be repudiated or revised in the interests of those who provide confidential information to the State.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office (Mr. William Price): I am reluctant to intervene in a debate when matters have been attributed to me, but since the hon. Gentleman referred to a phrase which I am alleged to have used, namely, "for the most doubtful of political purposes", I must inform him that what I said was "for the most doubtful reasons".

Mr. Griffiths: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says.
I hope that the Minister in reply to the debate will deal with the question of repudiating or amending what the Parliamentary Secretary said.
The other side of the coin is that I believe there should be fewer, but better kept, secrets. We close off far too much of our decision-making process. This has been agreed by all who have spoken. With the exceptions of military and foreign affairs, certain commercial information and a good deal of Government planning functions, for the rest I believe that we should benefit from the opening up of many areas of decision making at a very much earlier stage. If we were to adopt that course, we would achieve better decisions. We would discover at an earlier stage what the public thought, and successive Governments would not find themselves in the embarrassing situation of finding that, having come to a decision, the public do not want it. I have had some experience of that process in regard to Maplin. Earlier information on a much broader scale can only help in the quality of decision making.
I wish to make four recommendations. First, I believe that the Government should use every resource open to them including the police, to get to the source of a leak. When this has been done, the Attorney-General should bring public charges against the person or persons concerned. Assuming that they are found guilty, and assuming also that they are civil servants, they should be sacked with loss of pension. By the same token, Ministers should be called upon to resign.
The second recommendation is that the Prime Minister should repudiate the extraordinary notion that high-mindedness or political sincerity are, or ever can be, any justification for the breaking of the oath of office and breach of State


security. High-mindedness is no argument whatever for actions of this kind, any more than it was for the giving of secrets to Russia by Burgess, Maclean and Philby on the ground that this would somehow avoid nuclear war.

Mr. Crowder: Does my hon. Friend agree, because he has some experience of the police, that this is not a matter for the head of the Civil Service, who is a kind of Father Christmas figure, but for investigation by the CID? There are only so many people who can have had access to secrets. They should be interrogated and investigated, and in any criminal case a thorough look should be taken at their bank accounts.

Mr. Griffiths: I am obliged to my hon. and learned Friend for making that point.
Let me put forward my remaining suggestions. I believe that the Government should accept the advice given by Mr. Brian Roberts, the retiring editor of the Sunday Telegraph, about amending the Official Secrets Act. Simultaneously we should amend the law of contempt, which is used from time to time to gag the Press. We should review the system of D-notices, which occasionally are handled badly. Furthermore, the Government should look again at the vetting of the special advisers.
If we are to have well-kept secrets, there must be fewer of them. But equally, if there are to be fewer secrets, in the pursuit of more open Government, then such secrets as there are should be absolutely kept.

6.36 p.m.

Mr. Angus Maude: This debate apparently has raised some doubts in the minds of certain Labour Members who have asked why this discussion is taking place at all and whether we are not making a mountain out of a molehill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said that the Leader of the House could have avoided this debate if he had made a statement earlier. If anybody imagines that this debate has not been useful and salutary, I hope to persuade him otherwise.
This has been a mixed debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet,

East (Mr. Aitken) dealt with the merits of the case and believes that what the Government have done is a scandal, that these matters should have been revealed and the culprits named. The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) went so far as to say that he thought it scandalous that the stamp of secrecy should have been put on these proceedings.
I hope that most hon. Members will realise that that is not what we are talking about in this debate. We are not discussing the merits of the issue because that will be dealt with in a later debate this evening. Nor are we discussing whether it is right that the Cabinet should have decided that these matters were confidential. Cabinets cannot decide which of their discussions shall be confidential or which Cabinet minutes shall or shall not be issued to the Press. Hon Members who wish to debate the subject of open government and whether there should be more or fewer secrets are straying off the point of this debate.
It may be true that there should be more open government, and I listened with great interest to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup said on that matter. It may be true that there are far too many secrets and that the Official Secrets Act should be changed. I found the remarks made by the Leader of the House about that Act cloudy in the extreme—not that that is unusual in the right hon. Gentleman's speeches. He seemed to be saying either that if there were not an Official Secrets Act there would have been nothing to investigate or, alternatively, if the Government had got round to amending the Act it would be so much easier to discover the culprit in this case. Perhaps he will explain exactly what he did mean because what he said about the Act seemed to me extremely obscure.
The really important thing about this debate is that the Opposition, unlike a number of hon. Members on the Government side, feel that the deliberate leaking—and it was a deliberate and unprecedented leakage of Cabinet minutes—is a matter of utmost seriousness. We feel we have a right, and that the country has a right as well, to know that the Government are taking this matter with the appropriate amount of seriousness.
As a result of the speech made earlier by the Leader of the House we do not think that they are. The Leader of the House said that he would not talk about previous leaks although they had occurred, even though this was the line the Prime Minister first took when this matter was raised at Question Time. The Leader of the House then went on to say that on the one hand there was the question of necessity for secrecy and on the other hand there was the necessity of open government and this resulted in a conflict between two rights.
We do not believe that it is a conflict between two rights. It seems to us that what has happened is quite clearly wrong. If a senior Government Minister is going to say that this is half right, and not something which should be pursued with the utmost vigour, then we have a right to protest about it.
The seriousness of this matter can be sceen quite clearly from the speeches of hon. Members opposite. We appreciate the difficulty the Government are in. They have for many years been willing to protect certain Members on the Left of the Labour Party—and I am not making a moral judgment about this—who consider that the end justifies the means. [Interruption.] I will give some examples in a minute. These Members of the Left believe that the end of the public interest, as they see it, justifies the breaching of the conventions of confidentiality. It is within the memories of those of us who were here in the late 1940s and 1950s that the Bevanite group leaked the proceedings of the Labour Party Executive in one Sunday newspaper to such an extent that it became virtually a weekly serial. In addition we know exactly the view of the late Richard Crossman on secrecy, and on Cabinet confidentiality. He once said to a journalistic friend of mine that there was one political correspondent who could not even get leaks right when they were given at dictation speed.
The fact that there have been leaks before, far from making this particular case less serious, makes it all the more serious. After all, when someone is murdered or burgled the police authorities do not say that it does not matter because there have been murders and burglaries before—under a Conservative

Government. They set out to detect the crimes and bring the offenders to justice.
When that sort of attitude is followed by the speech of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Price) we are entitled to feel that the Government must give us more than they have given us already. The hon. Gentleman said that Sir Douglas Allen had been asked to make a report, he would do so, and sooner or later the Prime Minister would tell the House what the Government were going to do about it. When several suggestions were made to him about possible alternatives if Sir Douglas did not come to a conclusion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Another leak."] That is not a leak. He said it on the radio. He said that the track record for the kind of inquiry he was conducting was pretty poor. If hon. Members consider that that is a leak, then I suggest that Sir Douglas Allen might be investigated, too.
The fact of the matter is that the implications of this issue are extremely serious. It is obvious that where defence and security are concerned, Cabinet confidentiality must be secured. Otherwise the dangers are too horrifying for words. Hon. Members below the Gangway opposite must bear in mind that the leakers are frequently dissenting minorities. Hon. Members do not realise the extent to which they are putting at risk the rights to consultation and the power of influencing decisions which they have now. Inevitably, as confidentiality is compromised more and more, the actual decision making will be pushed further and further back to fewer and fewer people in ever smaller and smaller conclaves. This is the really serious matter. In the end they will find themselves without the information or the power of influencing decisions which they have now.
That is the question with which the Government are faced, and also the danger. It is the Prime Minister's responsibility, and we hope that he will face it, in accordance with his high office, with all the seriousness it deserves.
Unless the Leader of the House is a great deal more forthcoming and can give us a much clearer indication that he regards this leak of Cabinet minutes with immense seriousness we shall feel bound to press this matter to a Division. So far, we have not been given that assurance and we feel we have a right to it.

Mr. Mellish: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to give notice that I will vote with the hon. Gentleman to adjourn the House at 7 o'clock.

6.48 p.m.

Mr. Foot: I think that the simplest way in which I can reply to the debate which preceded the speech of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) is to refer to the speech made earlier by the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath).
I repudiate the implication that I have treated this subject with any lack of seriousness. It is not so. I was not departing in any way from what the Prime Minister said when he made his statement. If the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon had heard the speech made by the right hon. Member for Sidcup he would see the position more clearly, because apart from a half-sentence at the beginning, I found myself agreeing with every word he said. That is very awkward for the right hon. Member for Sidcup and very awkward for me, but I am willing to face that awkwardness, because I believe that in some respects the right hon. Gentleman has more experience on this matter than any other Member of the House.
The right hon. Member concurred with what I said in almost every particular, especially about the possibility of dealing with such matters by way of a tribunal of inquiry. He had experience with the operation of these inquiries and he confirmed the dangers of innocent people being injured by them. That was the first matter on which the right hon. Gentleman agreed with me.
The right hon. Member then agreed with the proposition that it was right for Sir Douglas Allen, the Head of the Civil Service, or some very high civil servant, to be put in charge of the process. The right hon. Gentleman did not dissent from that proposition.
The right hon. Member also thought that this debate was ill-timed—[Interruption.]. He said that the debate could have been avoided if I had made a different reply to the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), but he also said that this debate was ill-timed. He went on to elaborate some of the difficulties of the operation of the present system of on-the-record or off-the-record Press conferences. I am inclined to agree with him there, too.
I think that the House should take note of what the right hon. Gentleman said, because he was making positive proposals to assist in the establishment of various forms of open government. I did not happen to agree with the presidential conference that he had arranged on one matter, but that is the only other point in his speech from which I dissented.
I also agreed with what the right hon. Member said about the dangers of destroying confidentiality in Cabinets, and what effect that might have on open government itself. The right hon. Gentleman underlined, as did the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon, that if the confidentiality of Cabinet proceedings were destroyed, so far from assisting the process of open government it would endanger it, and if proceeded with too far would destroy it.
There was an article of some interest on this subject in the subsequent issue of New Society, by the Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University. He gave a picture of the way that Cabinets behaved which showed that he had very little knowledge of the subject. The right hon. Member for Sidcup described it much more accurately, and underlined the fact that, if it did not do serious injury to the confidentiality of Cabinet proceedings, so far from that assisting the process of open government it would only make it more difficult. I therefore hope very much that the House will take full account of what was said by the right hon. Gentleman.
I notice that the right hon. Member has now returned to the Chamber. I said to him in his absence, and I now say to his face that it is very awkward for us both if I agree with him. However, we both have to bear this cross. I believe that we concur in so many particulars that it would be sheer factiousness on my part not to underline it, and it would be quite impossible to divide the House on the basis of the difference between my views on this subject and those of the right hon. Gentleman, because we concur in so many particulars.
I refer now to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), who illustrated this matter from a different angle. I think that he expressed the matter absolutely. He said


that so long as these rules for the confidentiality of Cabinet proceedings prevailed, they must be observed. Contrary to my hon. Friend's view, I believe that they are valuable for the protection of the very processes of open government to which he referred. But, so long as those rules exist, they must be observed, and breaches of them, especially in such circumstances as this case, have serious consequences. I have never sought to depart from that view.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walton that it must be understood—it is common sense—that all Governments and Cabinets have differences of opinion. I think it was Lord Chatham who first said that all Cabinets were divided, and that was quite a long time ago. In fact I believe that the discovery of the need for confidentiality in Cabinets arose in the eighteenth century, partly because of the necessity for Cabinets to keep their information from the Monarchs of those times. Right from that day to this, the view has been taken that, if Ministers go into Cabinet meetings believing that what they discuss will be openly divulged without restriction, it will impair the operation of Cabinet government because it will make it less open and will lead to exactly the consequences which the right hon. Member for Sidcup described.
That does not mean that we cannot reform the Official Secrets Act. I believe that that should be done. But even a reform of the Act would not deal with this problem, because the necessity for some form of absolute confidentiality would remain even under a transformed Official Secrets Act. I believe that those facts are common ground.
In this case, however, I see no ground for dividing the House. There has been no dilatoriness. There has been no attempt by the Government to hush up the matter. There has been no attempt by the Government to treat the matter as anything other than the way in which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister described it when he announced the establishment of this inquiry.
I am sure that everyone who heard the right hon. Member for Sidcup will agree that his was a speech which enlightened the whole House. In view of that speech and, if I may say so—not immodestly—in view of my own speech, which concurred with almost all that the right hon. Gentleman said, I hope that the House will agree that it is impossible to divide the House. If that is the case, I urge the official Opposition to follow the advice of their right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup and not divide the House on this matter.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. F. P. Crowder: It seems to me that a criminal offence has been committed and that the Government are approaching this matter in a sloppy and lackadaisical manner.
How can the Head of the Civil Service be expected to interrogate someone who has given away and possibly sold information of a highly critical character? Why on earth cannot the Criminal Investigation Department be allowed to investigate the matter? Only a certain number of people could possibly be involved. Why should they not be interrogated by the CID?

Question put, That this House do now adjourn:—

The House proceeded to a Division—

Mr. Michael Neubert: (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Was it in your hearing that the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said that if my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) pushed this matter to a Division, he would vote for the motion to adjourn the House? He has been seen to exit from the "No" Lobby. Is it in order for a Member's vote not to follow his voice?

Mr. Speaker: Unlike most points of order during a Division, there is a certain validity in this one, but I have to say to the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) that the vote follows the shout, not declarations made during the course of the debate.

The House having divided: Ayes 267, Noes 294.

Division No. 201.]
AYES
[6.57 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Glyn, Dr Alan
Mawby, Ray


Aitken, Jonathan
Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Alison, Michael
Goodhart, Philip
Mayhew, Patrick


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Goodhew, Victor
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Arnold, Tom
Goodlad, Alastair
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Gorst, John
Mills, Peter


Awdry, Daniel
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Miscampbell, Norman


Baker, Kenneth
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Banks, Robert
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Moate, Roger


Beith, A. J.
Gray, Hamish
Montgomery, Fergus


Bell, Ronald
Grieve, Percy
Moore, John (Croydon C)


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Griffiths, Eldon
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Grist, Ian
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral


Benyon, W.
Grylls, Michael
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)


Berry, Hon Anthony
Hall, Sir John
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)


Biffen, John
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)


Biggs-Davison, John
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Mudd, David


Blaker, Peter
Hampson, Dr Keith
Neave, Airey


Body, Richard
Hannam, John
Nelson, Anthony


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Neubert, Michael


Bottomley, Peter
Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Newton, Tony


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Hastings, Stephen
Normanton, Tom


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Havers, Sir Michael
Nott, John


Braine, Sir Bernard
Hawkins, Paul
Onslow, Cranley


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Hayhoe, Barney
Oppenheim, Mrs Sally


Brotherton, Michael
Heath, Rt Hon Edward
Osborn, John


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Heseltine, Michael
Page, John (Harrow West)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Hicks, Robert
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Higgins, Terence L.
Pattie, Geoffrey


Buck, Antony
Holland, Philip
Penhaligon, David


Budgen, Nick
Hooson, Emlyn
Percival, Ian


Bulmer, Esmond
Hordern, Peter
Peyton, Rt Hon John


Burden, F. A.
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Pink, R. Bonner


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Howell, David (Guildford)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Prior, Rt Hon James


Channon, Paul
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Churchill, W. S.
Hurd, Douglas
Raison, Timothy


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rathbone, Tim


Clark, William (Croydon S)
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
James, David
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)


Clegg, Walter
Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd &amp; W'df'd)
Rees-Davlee W. R.


Cockcroft, John
Jessel, Toby
Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)


Cope, John
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)


Cormack, Patrick
Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Corrie, John
Jopling, Michael
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Costain, A. P.
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Ridsdale, Julian


Critchley, Julian
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Rlfkind, Malcolm


Crouch, David
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Rippon, Rt. Hon Geoffrey


Crowder, F. P.
Kimball, Marcus
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Kirk, Sir peter
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)


Drayson, Burnaby
Knight, Mrs Jill
Royle, Sir Anthony


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Knox, David
Sainsbury, Tim


Durant, Tony
Lamont, Norman
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Dykes, Hugh
Lane, David
Scott, Nicholas


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Scott-Hopkins, James


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Latham, Michael (Melton)
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Elliott, Sir William
Lawrence, Ivan
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Emery, Peter
Lawson, Nigel
Shepherd, Colin


Eyre, Reginald
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Shersby, Michael


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Silvester, Fred


Falrgrieve, Russell
Lloyd, Ian
Sims, Roger


Fell, Anthony
Loveridge, John
Sinclair, Sir George


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Luce, Richard
Skeet, T. H. H.


Fisher, Sir Nigel
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)


Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
McCrindle, Robert
Speed, Keith


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Macfarlane, Nell
Spence, John


Fookes, Miss Janet
MacGregor, John
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)


Forman, Nigel
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)
Sproat, Iain


Fox, Marcus
McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)
Stainton, Keith


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Madel, David
Stanbrook, Ivor


Fry, Peter
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Stanley, John


Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Marten, Nell
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Mates, Michael
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Mather, Carol
Stokes, John


Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)
Maude, Angus
Stradling Thomas, J.


Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald
Tapsell, Peter







Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)
Vaughan, Dr Gerard
Wiggin, Jerry


Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)
Viggers, Peter
Winterton, Nicholas


Tebbit, Norman
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)
Wood, Rt Hon Richard


Temple-Morris, Peter
Wakeham, John
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)
Younger, Hon George


Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek



Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)
Wall, Patrick
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Townsend, Cyril D.
Walters, Dennis
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


Trotter, Neville
Weatherill, Bernard
Mr. Cecil Parkinson.


Tugendhat, Christopher
Wells, John



van Straubenzee, W. R.
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William





NOES


Abse, Leo
Edge, Geoff
Lamborn, Harry


Anderson, Donald
Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Lamond, James


Archer, Peter
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)


Armstrong, Ernest
English, Michael
Leadbitter, Ted


Ashley, Jack
Ennals, David
Lee, John


Ashton, Joe
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Evans, loan (Aberdare)
Lever, Rt Hon Harold


Atkinson, Norman
Evans, John (Newton)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Lipton, Marcus


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Litterick, Tom


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Lomas, Kenneth


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Loyden, Eddie


Bean, R. E.
Flannery, Martin
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McCartney, Hugh


Bidwell, Sydney
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
MacCormick, lain


Bishop, E. S.
Ford, Ben
McElhone, Frank


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Forrester, John
MacFarquhar, Roderick


Boardman, H.
Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
McGuire, Michael (Ince)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Mackenzie, Gregor


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Freeson, Reginald
Mackintosh, John P.


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Maclennan, Robert


Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)


Bradley, Tom
George, Bruce
McNamara, Kevin


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Gilbert, Dr John
Madden, Max


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Ginsburg, David
Magee, Bryan


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Golding, John
Mallalteu, J. P. W.


Buchan, Norman
Gould, Bryan
Marks, Kenneth


Buchanan, Richard
Gourlay, Harry
Marquand, David


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Grant, John (Islington C)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Campbell, Ian
Grocott, Bruce
Mason, Rt Hon Roy


Canavan, Dennis
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Maynard, Miss Joan


Cant, R. B.
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Meacher, Michael


Carmichael, Nell
Hardy, Peter
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert


Carter, Ray
Harper, Joseph
Mendelson, John


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Mikardo, Ian


Cartwright, John
Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Millan, Bruce


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)


Clemitson, Ivor
Hatton, Frank
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)


Cohen, Stanley
Heffer, Eric S.
Molloy, William


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Hooley, Frank
Moonman, Eric


Concannon, J. D.
Horam, John
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Conlan, Bernard
Howell, Rt Hon Denis
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Morris, Rt Hon J.(Aberavon)


Corbett, Robin
Huckfield, Les
Moyle, Roland


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King


Crawford, Douglas
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Newens, Stanley


Crawshaw, Richard
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Noble, Mike


Cronin, John
Hunter, Adam
Oakes, Gordon


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)
O'Halloran, Michael


Cryer, Bob
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Orbach, Maurice


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Jaskson, Colin (Brighouse)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Davidson, Arthur
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Ovenden,John


Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
Janner, Grevilie
Owen, Dr David


Davies, Denzll (Lianeill)
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Padley, Walter


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Palmer, Arthur


Deakins, Eric
John, Brynmor



Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Park, George


de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)
Parker, John


Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Pavitt, Laurie


Dempsey, James
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Peart, Rt Hon Fred


Doig, Peter
Judd, Frank
Pendry, Tom


Dormand, J. D.
Kaufman, Gerald
Perry, Ernest


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Kelley, Richard
Phipps, Dr Colin


Duffy, A. E. P.
Kerr, Russell
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Dunn, James A.
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Prescott, John


Dunnett, Jack
Kinnock, Neil
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Eadie, Alex
Lambie, David
Price, William (Rugby)







Radica, Giles
Stallard, A. W.
Watkinson, John


Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)
Watt, Hamish


Raid, George
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)
Weetch, Ken


Richardson, Miss Jo
Stoddart, David
Weitzman, David


Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Stonehouse, Rt Hon John
Wellbeloved, James


Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Stott, Roger
Welsh, Andrew


Robertson, John (Paisley)
Strang, Gavin
While, Frank R. (Bury)


Roderick, Caerwyn
Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.
White, James (Pollok)


Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
Whitehead, Phillip


Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Swain, Thomas
Whitlock, William


Rooker, J. W.
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)
Wigley, Dafydd


Rose, Paul B.
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Willer, Rt Hon Frederick


Ross, Rt. Hon W. (Kilmarnock)
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)
Williams, Alan (Swansea W)


Sandelson, Neville
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Sedgemore, Brian
Thompson, George
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Selby, Harry
Thome, Stan (Preston South)
Williams, Sir Thomas


Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)
Tierney, Sydney
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Sheldon, Robert (Ashlon-u-Lyne)
Tinn, James
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Tomlinson, John
Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)


Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)
Tomney, Frank
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Short, Mrs Ranee (Wolv NE)
Torney, Tom
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
Tuck, Raphael
Woodall, Alec


Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.
Woof, Robert


Sillars, James
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Silverman, Julius
Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)
Young, David (Bolton E)


Skinner, Dennis
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)



Small, William
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)
Ward, Michael
Mr. John Ellis and


Spearing, Nigel
Watkins, David
Mr. Ted Graham.

Question accordingly negatived.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[26TH ALLOTTED DAY]—considered.

Mr. Speaker: Before we begin the debate I should tell the House that by the co-operation of hon. and right hon. Members 17 hon. and right hon. Members were able to speak in the previous debate. This debate is even shorter and, although I know that hon. Members feel strongly on the subject, I hope that they will cooperate equally now.

Orders of the Day — CHILD BENEFITS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That This House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Thomas Cox.]

7.12 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: We turn from the circumstances of the New Society leak to the substance of the case on which the leaked Cabinet documents have shed much light. The debate gives the House its first opportunity to examine and pronounce on what one newspaper called "the child benefit fiasco". But this is no ordinary fiasco. The tale that was unfolded, blow by blow, in the New Society article is not so much one of ineptitude, although there was plenty of that. What lifts this episode out of the common rut of Government fiascos is that ineptitude has been compounded with panic and deceit.
The Government's unbelievable lack of foresight in failing to make provision for a proper child benefit scheme is extraordinary. The Act was already on the statute book, and it was the heart of their policy on family poverty, yet when the time came there was no money for it.
We had the last-minute panic—a panic that may have been contrived—about the impact on pay policy of the switch from the wallet to the purse—a switch that has been an integral feature of tax credits since the Conservative Green Paper of 1972. Not least, we have had the cynical and disreputable manipulation of Cabinet colleagues, TUC leaders and Back Bench Members of Parliament by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in their efforts to defeat the scheme.
I do not want to waste time rehearsing all the sordid details. All I shall say at this stage is that The Sunday Times has described the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer as—
using means of persuasion that are less than frank".
That is, in effect, a charge of deceit. They are the ones—the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer—who should be here today to stand at the Dispatch Box, and not the hapless Secretary of State for Social Services who is put up to answer the charges.
I noted with interest—as I am sure did many hon. Members—the suggestions in the weekend Press that the Government might let this motion go through unopposed. I find it impossible to believe that even this Government could be so craven. It would mean that they were so unsure of their case, so uncertain of their support and so panicky about losing, that they would be too scared to put their proposals to the test of a vote in the House of Commons. Make no mistake; if the Government stick to their misguided policy but run away from the vote tonight it will be seen as a moral defeat of major proportions.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. David Ennals): Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what motion he is proposing tonight?

Mr. Jenkin: The debate is upon the Adjournment, as is entirely usual on Supply Days. I know that Labour Members do not like it, but a substantive motion can be amended by the Government, and a Government amendment may provide for uneasy Back Benchers an easy way out. The motion on the Adjournment leaves them to stand up and be counted as to whether they support the Government or not.
In the time available I wish to do three things. I wish, first, to remind the House briefly of the main purposes of a proper child benefit scheme or child tax credit scheme—different words for the same concept—whereby tax allowances are exchanged for cash payments. Secondly, I want to look at the reasons why the Government have scrapped such a scheme, despite all their pledges. Finally, I want to tell the House what the Government could and should do now to get themselves out of the hole they have dug for themselves.
I must make the position of the Conservative Party crystal clear. In the face of today's catastrophic public sector borrowing requirement we cannot argue for more public spending, nor do I intend to do so. But I believe that a Government determined to do something effective about family poverty—I stress "poverty"—a Government who recognises the severe limitations that economic necessity imposes, could even now make a start in securing the real advantages that only a proper child benefit scheme can secure.
Child tax credits—tax-free cash payments to mothers in place of child tax allowances and family allowances—are much more than just a way of increasing family support across the board. It is important to make this distinction. Even if for the average family there were no net increase in family income as a result of child benefit, such a scheme could achieve three important objectives in the fight against family poverty.
First, because child benefits are payable to families in which the breadwinner's income is below the tax threshold—which the Child Poverty Action Group refers to as families who "earn their poverty"—they represent a real cash improvement for those families. Here I draw the House's attention to a significant parliamentary Question that my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She asked:
what would be the estimated extra number of income tax payers in 1976–77 if child income tax allowances were abolished.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury replied:
About 250,000."—[Official Report, 11th June 1976; Vol. 912, c. 814.]
That means that 250,000 earning families are below the tax threshold—by definition, families with the larger number of children. I estimate that probably 750,000 children or more would come into the category of really poor families—the families who earn their poverty.
The Government scheme gives these families just £1 extra. The child benefit scheme could give them £2 plus for the first child, with extra benefits for every subsequent child, which is a substantial improvement. The actual amount, of course, would depend on the level of child benefit. That is the first and by

far the most important of the advantages of a real child benefit scheme.
The second advantage flows from it. There would be a significant easing of the poverty trap, which is something that we would all want to see. The Child Poverty Action Group memorandum says, in paragraph 6 that
By providing a larger tax free benefit many of the poorer families would be lifted off dependence on means tested benefits such as Family Income Supplement (FIS), rent rebates and rate rebates. The many thousands of families not claiming these benefits would for the first time receive a full measure of support. Child benefits would provide an income floor on which families can build by their own efforts. Means tested benefits provide a ceiling making it almost impossible for them to escape by their own efforts.
That is the second major advantage. The third is that it would help to deal with the situation in which a man can be better off out of work than in work. Because the benefit can he the same in both circumstances, the child benefit would increase the incentive to work.
I am sure that I am not the only hon. Member whose postbag has a regular flow of letters from people complaining with rising indignation of families which seem to have more spending money when drawing social security than when they are at work. A child benefit scheme would ease that problem. Even if no general improvement were possible, therefore, the child benefit scheme would carry significant advantages for poor families. By abandoning child benefits the Government have forgone those advantages.
There is a fourth advantage—which is different, because it applies to all families—which is that it transfers more of the family income into the mother's handbag. As a Treasury Minister, I lived through the row that followed publication of our Green Paper dealing with the payment of child tax credits, in which the payment to the mother was one of three options. The other two were payment to the father or payment split between the two parents. I was wholly convinced by the huge weight of opinion, particularly from women's organisations, that the switch from the wallet to the handbag would bring real social advantages to many hard-pressed mothers.
All these advantages of the child benefit are quite separate from the objective of improving the lot of families with


children right up the scale. Of course, there is a strong case for helping families with children. The figures show that they have lost out over the years as compared with single people and childless couples. But the extent to which one can help families across the board depends on the resources that are available. The real question to which the Government should have addressed themselves is whether, even if there could be no improvement, or perhaps a small, nominal general improvement, it was right to abandon the chance of bringing substantial help to the really poor and of putting more money into the mother's purse.
My complaint is not that option was rejected but that, if the leaked documents are anything to go by, it was never even considered. That is the first question that the Secretary of State should answer today. Did the Government ever consider the option of a scheme which while conferring no general benefit, because the Government could not afford it, would secure real benefits for poor families?
I now come to my second point—why did the Government abandon the child benefit scheme? We all know the reason given. The switch from wallet to purse would endanger the pay policy because of the reduction in take-home pay. I leave it to others to trace the tortuous intrigues of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, which seem to have generated this last-minute panic, if so it was. The TUC has always accepted that the switch was an integral part of an effective child benefit scheme. When it gave evidence to the Select Committee in 1973, it said in its memorandum, at paragraph 15, that
The General Council consider that child credits should be payable to the mother … rather than to the father.
It went on:
The General Council recognise that the effect of a decision to pay all child credits to the mother would be a significant change in the relative positions of the father and mother, as compared with existing arrangements.
It continued:
an effect of the change proposed would (in the case of the working household) be to reduce the take-home pay of the father. It would be essential, in implementing such a change, to give full publicity to the social objectives underlying the Government's policy.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe)

and my immediate predecessor both recommended that the amount of the child credit should be shown on the man's pay slip. That would bring home the fact that the money was there. It did not stop there. Mr. Feather, as he then was, said, at Question 1274:
we will take our share of the responsibility. We will deliver what we agree to deliver.
So the TUC has always been clear about this, and there was never a word of dissent from that date until quite recently. All through the successive stages of successive pay policies by successive Governments this switch has never been questioned, or even raised. If the fear that it would be so serious had any substance, are we to believe that nobody—not one member of the TUC or the Government—thought to raise it during the stage 2 talks? After all, it was known that child benefits were coming in three-quarters of the way through stage 2, in April, 1977, and that it would involve a switch from the pay packet to the purse. Was nothing said at any point?
Here I come to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). While these talks were going on, she was the guardian of this policy. Did she not think to remind her colleagues, when talking about the effect of the pay policy on take-home pay, that there was this commitment to the switch and that it would perhaps be wise to secure TUC acknowledgement? After all, her Department was very busy planning for the introduction of child benefit in April 1977. It had even begun printing leaflets about it. It is now my turn to refer to a document that has escaped from the Government's secrets box. It is Leaflet CH1(T) dated September 1976, for issue next autumn. It is entitled
The new Child benefit: claiming for one child".
It says:
From April 1977 a new social security benefit called child benefit will replace family allowances and child interim benefit. Normally it will be paid to the child's mother. If you or your husband are getting an income tax allowance for a child under 11 it will end at the same time, and any tax allowance for a child aged 11 or over will be reduced".
There is no doubt about it. Everyone knew that this was being planned and yet while those pay negotiations were going on not one member of the Government,


least of all the right hon. Lady, seems to have thought it necessary to mention the matter. With this leaflet actually being printed, she might have given one tiny warning that the switch would be taking money from the wallet and putting it in the purse.
The right hon. Lady is very fond of posing as the guardian angel of the poor, but we know that she was quite content to leave the fate of the child benefit to the hazards of the Contingency Reserve. We know now that she never recognised or warned of the effect which the Budget increases in child tax allowances would have on the cost of introducing the child benefit. She was very frank about that in an article in the New Statesman on 4th June. She said:
A higher tax allowance automatically jacked up the level of child benefit. But it also jacked up the cost in public expenditure. In my innocence I did not see how the argument was developing".
For the right hon. Lady to pose as "The Angel Innocence" is to move into a dream world of a feminine Walter Mitty. Now we know that her Department was actually printing the leaflets referring to the reduction of child tax allowance. She never thought to warn of the effect on net pay in the context of stage 2. The right hon. Lady has a good deal more to answer for in this fiasco than she has so far cared to admit.
The right hon. Lady may argue that the pay policy threat never had any substance and that it has no substance today; that it was simply manufactured to conceal the fact that the cost was not now acceptable. If she says that, at least she can take the comfort that the present Prime Minister is not the first Prime Minister to have sold her down the river.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: If the right hon. Gentleman has quite finished, perhaps he will give way. I should not like to interrupt his attack. Is he not forgetting that the child tax reliefs in the Budget were specifically referred to by the Chancellor as unconditional and not part of the conditional tax reliefs which related to pay policy?

Mr. Jenkin: What on earth difference does that make? It was going to have its effect on the cost of child benefit and that, in turn, was going to have its effect on take-home pay. It seems to me that

the right hon. Lady was guilty of a very considerable failure in failing to warn her colleagues that this would have an impact on pay policy.
But I do not believe that the real reason has anything to do with pay policy; the real reason is simply that the Government have come to the conclusion that they cannot afford the cost—that is, they cannot afford the cost both of measures to relieve the poor and of a broad general improvement in family support. That is what they have always wanted, and they cannot afford it.
Some hon. Members, notably the right hon. Member the present Secretary of State, appeared still to he harbouring illusions that there was still room for a massive improvement in family support. The right hon. Member told the Cabinet that lie was still hoping to get back to the level of support which the Tories gave to families during their period of office. So the right hon. Gentleman opened his mouth too wide. Instead of recognising the harsh realities of economic stringency, he pressed for a scheme that would have cost £200 million, or £300 million to judge from the Prime Minister. He said that such a scheme was
required to restore the support for a three-child families to the level it had been under the Tories in 1971.
But by then it was out of the question. He could not have such a scheme. He tried to reduce it to £160 million, but by then the game was up. The pressures were crowding in on the Chancellor, the pound was collapsing, and there was need to negotiate a massive new foreign credit. So the Chancellor was determined to kill the scheme because the cost was too great.
Therefore, we come to ask the question: why, when it came to the crunch, was there nothing in the kitty for child benefits? Where has all the money gone? The answer is clear: gone to the Left wing, every one. The Labour Members below the Gangway and their Left-wing friends in the T.U.C. have in two and a half years stripped the Treasury bare, and there is nothing left for child benefits. Here was a key election pledge. Here was the heart of Labour's strategy on family poverty. Yet when Mother Hubbard left home for the Back Benches, she left the cupboard bare and the poor little doggie got none. The


right hon. Gentleman was sniffing around for a juicy £200 million bone and "there weren't none." To make matters worse, we have seen the spectacle since then not of doggie biting the improvident Mother Hubbard, as he was entitled to do, but of Mother Hubbard beating doggie for not having produced the bone. But what a travesty of economic planning by the party of economic planning. What a miserable betrayal of the poor by the party that poses as the champion of the poor. It will be a long time before anyone believes them again.
I turn to my third question, and ask what should now be done. It would be easy to stand here and say that a Tory Government would not start from here—that we would not have put up income tax to 35 per cent., which has increased the tax cost of child tax allowances; we would not have lowered thresholds for higher rate taxpayers; we would not have squandered money on nationalisation, the British National Oil Corporation, indiscriminate subsidies, dock labour schemes, phasing out pay beds, and all the rest; and that we could, therefore, say that we would be in a better position to pay for child benefits.

AN HON. MEMBER: Groundnuts.

Mr. Jenkin: That was also a Labour Government. The hon. Gentleman has a long memory.
However, I shall not take refuge in that easy answer. I shall tell the Government what they should do now in the situation in which they find themselves.
The first thing that the Government should do is to take away the miserable Ennals scheme, which has found few friends in the House of Commons and none outside it. In its place they should introduce a proper child benefits scheme, next April, which achieves the four objectives I have set out—bigger help for the poorest families, an easing of the poverty trap, restoring the incentive to work, and the transfer of cash to the mother's handbag.
Secondly, such a scheme should leave no family worse off. Thirdly, such a scheme might actually cost less than the Government's scheme, provided—and here I make the concession—that it does not provide for any general improvement

in family support. One has to say that, because the present Government cannot now afford any general improvement in family support. The money that might have gone on a general improvement of family support has already been frittered away on other less worthy objectives—

Mr. George Cunningham: Why does the right hon. Gentleman not put down a motion?

Mr. Jenkin: —therefore, the question is, how is this to be done? The key is to be found in another question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey on 13th May. She asked the Secretary of State,
how many millions of pounds will be transferred from taxpaying families to non-taxpaying families if a child benefit is introduced at no extra cost".
The Secretary of State replied,
If the amount of child tax allowance subsumed were the rate for children under 11, the amount transferred under a nil-cost scheme would probably be of the order of £40 million a year. This estimate is, however, subject to a fairly wide margin of error."—[Official Report, 13th May 1976; Vol. 911, c. 234.]
That means, in theory, subject to the margin of error, that a child benefit scheme could be introduced and that it would not involve a transfer from taxpaying families provided that one was prepared to spend £40 million on introducing it, which is less than half the £95 million which the Government are proposing to spend. I do not believe, however, that one can be as exact as that. It would be necessary to provide small improvements when one rounds off the figures, and one must make sure that no family is worse off.
There are two categories. A nil-cost scheme involves child credit of £2·34, leaving two-child families no worse off. One is left with families of three or more children. Secondly, the "middle management" families, the families paying tax at the lower rates of higher income tax, also have to be dealt with.
The families with three or more children could be compensated by paying a premium, on those figures, of about 30p per child for the third and subsequent children. That would mean an annual cost of about £37 million and would leave most of those families a few pence a week better off. That is a solution along the


lines put forward in The Times today by Pat Healy.
So far as the second group—the higher rate taxpayers—are concerned, I do not see how it can be right to impose the cost of a child benefit scheme solely upon families paying the higher rate of income tax, families with children. After all, the imbalance between families with children and single people and childless couples exists right up the income scale. Therefore, it would not be acceptable to make families with children bear the cost of this scheme.
Without access to official statistics it is not possible to be wholly precise, but the conclusion that I have reached is that the proper approach for ensuring that higher rate taxpayers are left no worse off is that child benefit should replace only the value of child tax allowances at the basic 35 per cent. rate and to leave the taxpayer with the benefit of CTAs for higher rate tax so far as those rates exceed 35 per cent.
It would be 35 per cent. across the board, but if the marginal rate were 40 per cent. one would get child tax allowance on the 5 per cent. difference. If the marginal rate were 50 per cent., there would be CTA on 15 per cent., and, with some adjustments—I recognise that there might have to be some to make sure that they were no better and no worse off—that is how the cost would not be imposed on these families. If the tax adjustment were phased out at the 50 per cent. or 55 per cent. rate, and if the actual numbers were adjusted to leave families below that rate neither better nor worse off, the cost would be well within the limits that I have set.

Mr. Ennals: I am following with interest what the right hon. Gentleman is proposing. Will he go on to explain what he would do about the several hundred thousand children—about 500,000—who are the daughters or sons of people living in this country but who are themselves not resident here? As the right hon. Gentleman will recognise, the mothers would not themselves get the new benefit because that would apply only if the child was here. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that child tax allowance should be taken from the father. He would leave several hundreds of families—about 200,000—positively and sharply

worse off. He said—not today—that that would cost about £45 million.

Mr. Jenkin: I think that on this matter is for the right hon. Gentleman to say what he would do. The leaked documents from the Cabinet made it clear that his proposal was for £160 million plus £45 million for dependent children overseas. I have studied again what the Select Committee said about it. It did not come down in favour of paying tax credits to children overseas of people resident here. That was a unanimous recommendation, because it was not divided upon by any of the members of the Select Committee. Therefore, I was surprised to hear it suggested today that the Government were seriously contemplating posting £45 million abroad to support children in other countries.

Mrs. Castle: I have an interest in this matter, in view of a certain Conservative amendment when the Child Benefit Bill was going through the House. Is it now Conservative policy not to continue child tax allowances for non-resident children?

Mr. Jenkin: I am not saying that, because this is a matter that has not been resolved by either the Government or the Opposition. When my hon. Friends moved an amendment in Committee the right hon. Lady said broadly that she would look at it, and that she had not made up her mind. We look forward to hearing from the right hon. Gentleman where he stands.

Mr. Ennals: Mr. Ennals rose—

Mr. Jenkin: I must finish, because this is a short debate.
I believe that on the lines that I have described, it would be possible for the Inland Revenue to devise a scheme that would leave these higher income families no worse off.
Provided it is recognised that there are little or no resources for general improvement in family support, if there were a basic child benefit to replace child tax allowances and FAM at a rate to leave a two-child family no worse off and no better off, if there were a premium of 30p per child for third and subsequent children, and if child tax allowances were adjusted to prevent middle management from having to pay for the scheme, a


start could be made now on a proper child benefit scheme at a cost somewhat less than that suggested by the Government. Such a scheme would confer on poor families, and on mothers, all the four advantages that I outlined at the beginning of my speech.

Mr. George Cunningham: Why did the right hon. Gentleman not table a motion to say that?

Mr. Jenkin: That is the way out of the Government's dilemma. As it stands today, the Government's social policy for families is a shambles. It is a shambles of shattered illusions and broken promises, compounded with ministerial deceit. If there is a vote tonight—and I hope there will be—hon. Gentlemen must make up their own mind whether they will support the Government's shambles. I shall not help them. For us on these Benches there can be only one answer. We must vote not only in support of the introduction of child benefit but in condemnation of the Government's feckless and disreputable shelving of the scheme.

7.45 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. David Ennals): First, I very much regret that this debate has been truncated by the unnecessary debate that concluded at 7 o'clock. There will not be time for many of my right hon. and hon. Friends to take part in the debate because we were dragged into an issue that need not have been brought before the House at all today, and we now have less than three hours in which to debate an important subject.
Before replying to some of the points raised by the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) I want to say unequivocally that the Government accept the principle of a new benefit combining the value of family allowances and child tax allowances and paid to the mother as the basis of a more socially just means of family support. Such a scheme not only provides the mother with a family income for all her children, making her less dependent on what she receives from her husband's pay, but also gives more support to the poorest families whose income is so low as to deprive them of the benefits of tax allow-

ances. I thought it right to state at the outset the Government's commitment to the child benefit scheme.
The policy that I outlined in Parliament on 25th May fulfils to the letter—but only the letter—our manifesto commitment. We shall not have achieved all that we want until we have provided a larger payment to the mother in place of child tax allowances which are of no benefit to the poorest. The Government are committed to introduce the whole scheme when economic circumstances permit. I can give no specific commitment of a date but I want a little later in my speech to look into the future.
Let me first look at the Opposition's case.
In commenting on my statement on 27th May the right hon. Gentleman then suggested that we could have brought in a £2·50 benefit for only £40 million. He did not repeat exactly that today, and I want to consider the proposal that he has put forward. Even at £95 million—which is the amount that we are spending on our new scheme—we could not bring in the premium necessary on top of the £2·50 to make sure that one-parent and large families were not worse off. So it would have cost more than £95 million.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: To correct the record, it was not I who said £2·50. I referred to a much better scheme. It was the right hon. Gentleman who put the figure of £2·50 into my mouth.

Mr. Ennals: The right hon. Gentleman put the figure of £40 million in his speech.
What is the Opposition's argument? In attacking the Government's decision they are either calling for more public expenditure or they are ignoring the importance of protecting and sustaining the new pay policy hammered out by the Government and the TUC. Let us examine the alternatives before us.
The case has been put forward in the Press and elsewhere for a £2·50 scheme. Compared with £1 and £1·50 that sounds a great deal, but what does it mean in practice? It is true that those families too poor to pay tax and not on social security benefits would have gained more under this scheme than under our proposals. But for all ordinary working families who pay tax—and a man with


two children now begins to pay tax at around £30 a week—the extra money going to the wife from the larger benefit—that is £2·50 as opposed to £1 or £1·50—would be offset by the extra loss from the husband's pay packet. Families with more than two children actually gain less overall under this scheme than under the one that I announced on 25th May. Families with more than four children, and all one-parent families, would be worse off than they are now. Extra payment to make good these losses would have added further to the cost of the scheme.
A number of other suggestions have been put forward. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), in the article to which reference has been made, mentioned the scheme for a payment of £2·70. What this means in terms of net gain to families paying basic rate tax is an extra 68p for a one-child family, with a few more pence for larger families. That is more than our scheme, which gives a net gain of 30p. It is more because it costs more—£220 million as opposed to £95 million; just over twice the gain for just over twice the price.
A rate of £2·90, which has also been mentioned, would cost more than £300 million. It would have been irresponsible at this time for the Government to embark on an expensive new public expenditure commitment from 1977 to 1980. If we had introduced a costly child benefit, we should have had to trim expenditure elsewhere.
Therefore, it is clear that the Opposition are not arguing for a more generous scheme. They could not do so because the basis of their argument is massive cuts in public expenditure regardless of the social consequences. With this repeated call to cut and cut again, it would have been much more consistent for them to table a motion urging that we should postpone the whole scheme.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: The right hon. Gentleman said that there was no possibility of increasing expenditure from 1977 to 1980. If I read the papers correctly, he and the Government have been suggesting that the scheme will be introduced sooner or later. Are we to take it that there is no chance of its being introduced in any form before 1980?

Mr. Ennals: I shall deal with the future as we see it a little later. The hon. Gentleman must wait.
I said that a large, more expensive scheme would not have been possible or reasonable in view of the problems of public expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman put forward a scheme which he said would be a transfer and would not mean additional public expenditure. I intervened to point out that he would be leaving the families of many overseas children at a disadvantage. The right hon. Gentleman has shown little understanding of the reasons why the Cabinet took its decision. He knows that it was not an easy decision, and it was made after an agonising reappraisal. There were difficult issues that had to be faced at a time when the Government were negotiating with TUC on the most important issue of the day—the working out of a pay policy which is essential in the battle against inflation.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman and many of his hon. Friends have no time for pay policy. The right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), the Opposition spokesman on employment, wrote an article published in The Times on 15th June under the astonishing headline:
Three major reasons why the Government's new pay policy will fail.
That presumably was because the Opposition wished it to fail—and people ask who is knocking confidence in Britain.
The House must face up to the effect of introducing the full scheme at once. It makes no difference to the new pay policy what the level of benefit is—£2·34, £2·45, £2·50, £2·60 or £2·70. The effect on take-home pay is precisely the same.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: If that is so, is the right hon. Gentleman coming to the reason why nobody thought of it during the pay negotiations period?

Mr. Ennals: I do not accept that no one thought of it during the pay negotiations. When the negotiations with the TUC were continuing, and before the General Council had pronounced on the negotiations, the Government had to concentrate on the effect on take-home pay. If the right hon. Gentleman is saying that he and his party do not give a rap for the consequences on take-home pay—that must be what they are saying—I take it at


its face value. The Leader of the Opposition and others on the Opposition Front Bench have not sought to give strength to the pay policy, which we know is essential in our battle against inflation.
The question of take-home pay became a great deal more important once the Government and the TUC had reached agreement that in the next pay round, beginning in August 1976, the increase in gross pay should be at a minimum of £2·50 per week but at a maximum of no more than £4 a week. For the first time we had a pay policy based largely on take-home pay—a modest increase in pay linked with significant tax concessions.
I do not believe that even now many Opposition Members appreciate just what could have happened had we then superimposed the child benefit scheme in its original form on the pay policy. It would have meant that, after paying tax—and national insurance contributions on the pay increase, and making the further reduction in tax allowances of £2·02 for the first child and £1·14 for each subsequent child, every family man with two or more children and most of those with only one child would have had less in his pay packet after the full permitted pay increase than he had before. The great majority would have found themselves next spring with an Irishman's rise. In the context of pay policy and the fight against inflation, we could not risk undermining ordinary working people's support for the pay policy.

Mrs. Lynda Chalker: Does not the Secretary of State realise that what he is saying is that in families where husbands take home £80 or £90 a week and the wife with three or more children is given only £20 a week, the Government are putting the TUC and the man's situation in front of the family? Surely that is something we should be trying to avoid.

Mr. Ennals: What did the hon. Lady and her party do about the matter during the four years they were in power? They had a fine scheme which they did not introduce. Hon. Members on both sides of the House believe in the social philosophy of child benefits, but we must face the fact that we have not got our message over to the average man and woman. I should be very surprised if Opposition

Members were satisfied that men and women in their constituencies fully understand the implications. I have found that many people knew that there would be a bigger benefit for the wife but did not understand fully that basically it would come out of the husband's pocket. There is the prospect of some advantage from the serious matter of the leak that we debated earlier in the evening. At least the arguments are beginning to get through to people. We must take advantage of that to secure that when the time comes here will be full support from working people for this transfer.

Mr. D. E. Thomas: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the total advertising budget of his Department now is and whether it is possible for it to advertise before the introduction of the scheme precisely what it will mean for the husband and wife?

Mr. Ennals: Even if we had done that, we knew perfectly well the concern felt by leading trade union figures. A great deal has been written about the TUCs attitude on the issue. Not all of it is accurate. I should like to make the position clear, as the TUC's views are of great importance in terms not only of the social contract but of the effective implementation of the second stage of the battle against inflation.
There is a great deal of common ground between the Government and the TUC on this as on many other issues. First, the TUC is committed to the full child benefit scheme, and so are the Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] I shall come to that. It is all very well for that question to be asked by Opposition Members who do not have the responsibility—thank heavens they have not!—of ensuring that the second stage of the battle against inflation is won. Like the Government, the TUC regret that the full scheme could not be introduced next year as originally intended, but the General Council welcomes the introduction of a benefit for the first child as promised in our election manifesto.
In reaching these conclusions, the TUC like the Government, had to take into account two factors—the amount of public money we could make available for child benefit at this difficult time and the


effect of reductions in child tax allowances on take-home pay. The Government, the TUC and the Labour Party all want to see the full child benefit scheme introduced. Indeed, at last week's meeting of the Labour Party-TUC Liaison Committee it was agreed that a working party should be set up to report urgently on the steps that can be taken to ensure this.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the tremendous lessening of the pressure by wives on husbands for more housekeeping money resulting from an effective child benefit scheme such as that outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin)?

Mr. Ennals: We shall see the first advantage when we fulfil our commitment to introduce a benefit for the first child, which the Conservative Party never did in all its years in Government. We accept that it is only the first step, but we have taken it and we do not have to accept criticisms from the Conservatives.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Mr. Peter Bottomley (Woolwich, West) rose—

Mr. Ennals: I have given way many times and I do not propose to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman said that the TUC was in favour of a transfer from wallet to purse and quoted its evidence to the Select Committee. I remind him, first, that there was to be a large net gain to families under the child credit scheme, which would have meant a larger public spending commitment.
I have made clear all the way through that there were two essential arguments. One was the question of the pay policy, which I have developed, and the other was the question of public expenditure. It could be said that if we did the full transfer at a low rate the husband would be told "You have seen this loss of your income but your wife has only 1p or 2p to gain. Family support is hardly better." But if we could introduce a substantial benefit for the wife we could tell the husband "Do not complain. Your take-home pay has been cut because your family income is substantially larger." One could not say that it was substan-

tially larger if it were only 4p for some and 22p for others, and the imaginative child benefit scheme would get off to an apalling start. That would have happened if many people had seen that the effect was not to bring great new wealth to the family but that it simply meant a transfer from one part to the other.
I return to the two reasons for the Government's decision. The pay policy argument which I have spelt out, and which is as important to the TUC as it is to the Government, could have been overcome if we did not have to show greater restraint in public expenditure; or if we had been able to say to the breadwinner "Do not just concern yourself about the reduction in pay. Look at the fact that the family as a whole is much better off." We could not say that if it were only a few pence that we could offer them.
Naturally, there has been a great deal of interest in the debate that went on before the Government's decision was announced to Parliament on 25th May. There was a genuine argument. How could we reconcile both our commitment to the struggle against family poverty and the battle against inflation? Must one fall victim to the other? Were we to set aside all else in our determination to do nothing to endanger pay policy? Should we postpone the fulfilment of our manifesto commitment? These were some of the decisions we had to take. I am glad that the Cabinet decided against this latter alternative because it could have postponed the whole scheme.
In February 1974 we promised to introduce—I quote the exact words of our manifesto—
a new system of Child Cash Allowances for every child, including the first, payable to the mother.
In October we promised to—
attack family poverty by increasing family allowances"—
we did that last year—
and extending them to the first child through a new scheme of child credits payable to the mother.
We decided not to put off the whole imaginative scheme but to introduce child benefits on a step by step basis. What we have decided fulfils at least the letter of our commitments.
What of the future? I have already said that the Government are committed to the introduction of the scheme as envisaged. It is not only a commitment; it is on the statute book. For reasons which I have already explained we do not, at present, feel able to introduce it fully in one stage.
As I announced in the House, the Government's proposals mean that from next April over 6 million mothers will be £1 better off with the benefit paid for the first child, and the cut in take-home pay would be by means of the traditional tax clawback. The Government will be free, in the light of the economic situation, to expand the child benefit scheme by variations of the level of child benefit paid to the mother on the one hand and the adjustment of tax allowances on the other.
A working party has been established by the Labour Party and the TUC to consider means of implementing fully the child benefit scheme.
The Government will play a full rôle in this working party, and I very much hope that it will come forward with constructive proposals that will enable the Government to implement the full scheme. But of course the Government themselves must decide what they will recommend to Parliament on this.
The Opposition have been using tonight's debate for purely party-political purposes. They are playing politics with poor families. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] The people of this country will well remember that the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), shortly before the 1970 election, made quite clear his view about what was possible to improve the conditions of families. He said:
We accept that the only way of tackling family poverty in the short term is to increase family allowances.
I do not know what he considered to be "the short term" but four years later, when the Tory Government were turned out of office, they had not increased family allowances. We will not take lecturing from the Conservatives about how we fulfil our responsibilities to mothers and children. If they had been serious they would have tabled a motion this evening telling the country just what they would do.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Mr. Patrick Jenkin rose—

Mr. Ennals: I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment. In fact, the scheme they outlined was unreasonable and unaccceptable. The fact that they refused to table a motion on a major issue now facing the country shows that they were chicken. All they have done is to ask us to debate the matter on the motion, That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: If the record of the Tory Government is so bad as the right hon. Gentleman seems to say, why did he tell his Cabinet colleagues that what he had to do at the very least was to get back to the level of family support of the Tory Government?

Mr. Ennals: The right hon. Gentleman does not have to believe everything he reads in the newspapers. Since the Tories have not troubled to table a motion I see no reason why I or my right hon. and hon. Friends should take the trouble to challenge them in the Lobby tonight. As for my hon. Friends, I am confident that they will accept the assurance that I have given about Her Majesty's Government's intentions.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. David Price: In spite of that little outburst at the end, the Secretary of State was about as happy in making that speech as a butcher addressing a conference of vegetarians.
My credentials for seeking the attention of the House in this debate are simple. I served for a year on the Select Committee on Tax-Credit, and that year's experience convinced me that immediate progress in the reduction of poverty in Britain and the advance of the cause of equity in our welfare arrangements lay in the introduction of child credits, as we called them, under a tax credit scheme, or child benefits, as the present Government prefer to call them. I am totally committed to their early introduction, as I have been since I put my name to that report.
I therefore wish to give testimony to the House that all of us who spent that year on the Select Committee studying these matters were agreed that the early introduction of child benefits or credits was essential and urgent.
In their minority report, on page 74 of Volume I of our Report, the present Chief Secretary and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said:
The present 100 per cent. 'poverty surtax' could be better removed by universal child credits paid to the mother.
I had the pleasure of sitting next to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) during the Committee's deliberations, and found it a stimulating experience. In paragraph 16 of her minority report, the right hon. Lady wrote:
The one field in which there is an overwhelming case for merging tax allowances and social benefits is in the case of children since there is no other equally effective way of preventing the existence of children from plunging a low-paid family into poverty. The proposed merger of child tax allowances, family allowances and FIS into a child endowment payable to all children including the first is therefore in principle highly desirable.
From the main body of the report, one can see that none of our colleagues who introduced minority reports divided the Committee, so we are entitled to assume that they agreed when, in paragraph 47, we gave four reasons for paying benefit exclusively to the mother:

"(a) because the mother is normally the parent who does most of the day to day spending on the children;
(b) to provide some form of income as a right, particularly in the cases where the husband makes irregular or inadequate provision;"—

we got some terrifying evidence about the irregularity and the inadequacy of provision from husbands who were not themselves short in their pay packets—

"(c) as Family Allowances are now available for encashment at the Post Office on Tuesdays, to retain a separate mid-week payment to help hard pressed family budgeting;
(d) as a means of stabilising family budgeting by using the Family Allowances as a form of small saving."
Those four reasons are as good today as they were when we wrote them.
This is important, irrespective of whether there is any overall increase in public expenditure on these matters. On the basis of a nil increase in public expenditure, it is still right, and urgent, for these sorts of reasons, to move over to child benefit now.
We gave further supporting evidence in paragraph 50:

Perhaps the most useful quantification which they were able to produce was the result of an inquiry in March 1969, which showed that 52 per cent. of all family allowances by number and 58 per cent. by value were cashed on the first available day, and a further 28 per cent. by number and 25 per cent. by value were cashed within a week of the first available day (ibid., Annex II). Considering that the Family Allowances are often a relatively small sum, we think that such a large encashment on the first day is evidence that in many cases the money is needed urgently by the person who collected it. The same broad inference may be drawn from the fact that the same study showed that 81 per cent. of orders were cashed one at a time.
These are important facts in support of our case for child credits in our report.
In its evidence to us, the TUC made it perfectly clear that it was aware of the very problems over which the Secretary of State and the Government seem to be finding so much difficulty. In paragraph 54, we stressed that
the General Council of the TUC were prepared to defend a decision to pay the child credits to the mother in spite of the implied loss to the father's pay packet.
Let me amplify that statement from the oral evidence we received from the representatives of the TUC—Mr. Feather, Sir Sidney Greene, Mr. Anderson, Chairman of the Social Insurance Committee, Mr. Lea, Secretary of the Economic Department, Miss Leiser, an assistant and Mr. Jacques, Secretary of the Social Insurance Department.
Lord Feather, as he now is, said:
I would like to underline some of the main points in our evidence. There are some aspects of the tax credit proposals which we find attractive. In particular we support the proposal that there should be a single form of tax-free child benefit and this would replace family allowances, child tax allowances and national insurance child benefits. But the child credit proposals need to be modified, we think, in important ways. We want all child credits to be paid to the mother to give her a guaranteed source of income to help towards meeting the household bills. All child credits should be paid to the mother; we have had a long discussion about this and that is the conclusion that we ultimately reached".
Therefore, I do not know how it is that the right hon. Gentleman takes the view that if he goes ahead with what his Government are already committed to it will ruin the chances of the Government's pay policy succeeding. Indeed, this was the main argument upon which the Secretary of State rested his case in the statement he made to the House on 25th May.


I remind the House of what the right hon. Gentleman said:
Introduction of the scheme in its original form would, however, have imposed an excessive strain on the pay policy which is vital to the Government's continuing success in overcoming inflation. Current circumstances are not the occasion for the drastic reduction in take-home pay which a substantial cut in child tax allowances would have entailed".—[Official Report, 25th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 284.]
The right hon. Gentleman was saying that the majority of male taxpayers would not accept the transfer of payment that is implicit in the child benefit scheme. I believe that he is doing a grave injustice to the men of this country by alleging that we are not prepared to accept a personal transfer from the pay packet to the handbag—if you like, from dads to mums. I believe that his fears are illusory. I have read to the House the evidence given to us by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress. I have no reason to suppose that it did not think out very carefully the implications of what it was saying. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) read out from the General Council's written evidence. I have read out from the oral evidence, when Lord Feather went out of his way to stress this point, before we were questioning him in detail.

Mr. Ennals: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reading out part of Lord Feather's evidence. Did he note further evidence given by Lord Feather, which appears on page 269:
Perhaps I can add a caveat there; I think that the idea was that it was going to be phased. There would be some phasing of this transfer, as it were, from the pay packets to the mother's child credit. This would be phased; it would not happen over one week or something of that kind.
So Lord Feather himself was thinking of phasing when he gave that evidence. That was at a time when there was no agreement between the Government and the TUC to a pay policy based substantially on tax concessions.

Mr. David Price: I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation. We have much evidence here, and I would be happier if there were more time to go through it in greater detail with the right hon. Gentleman. That was not the

impression that I gained. I wonder whether any other right hon. or hon. Member who was a colleague on the Select Committee drew the same interpretation as the Secretary of State has drawn.
I do not wish to delay the House further. I believe that the Government are assuming that many more male taxpayers are, to use the emotive language of Woman's Lib, male chauvinist pigs than is in fact the case. I think that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in Government have taken a rather abysmal view of the men of this country. I remind him of the words used by the right hon. Member for Blackburn in moving the Second Reading of the Child Benefit Bill:
It is appropriate that this measure should be put before Parliament in International Women's Year because it supplements the other measures that the Government have been taking to help women play their vital rôle in society. International Women's Year has always been just as much concerned with the woman struggling at home to bring up a family as with the aspirations of her career sister."—[Official Report, 13th May 1975; Vol. 892, c. 330.]
It is very sad that this Labour Government should be the last bastion of male chauvinism in Britain.

8.23 p.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: I am sure that the House is grateful to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price) for a very thoughtful and fair speech.
I regret that I cannot say as much for the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin). The right hon. Gentleman is the last person in the House to talk about deceit and cynicism on the question of family support. It was the Conservative Party that in 1970 fought the General Election on a specific pledge to increase family allowances, and the Conservatives even fooled the Child Poverty Action Group in the process. In their whole period of four years the Conservatives did not raise the family allowance by a single penny. Despite all the great fanfare about their tax credit scheme, they were backtracking on it almost before the ink was dry on the report of the Select Committee. Recently we had the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) writing articles to the effect that the tax credit scheme would have to be modified.
In the last election it was significant that the Conservative Party election manifesto made no commitment to increase the child credit—not even the child credit—beyond the words "as economic circumstances permit". Yet here is the Conservative Party saying that the economic circumstances of the country are such that we should be slashing public expenditure to figures which have been quoted—to the tune of £4,000 million, even. It is absurd to imagine that that could be done without cutting a number of social policies.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been accused of being cowardly. That comes very ill from the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, who is too cowardly to spell out his policy in a motion so that the House can vote on it. He said that to have done so would have been to allow an amendment as an easy way out for those of us on the Back Benches. He must surely know that a procedure motion is the easiest of way out of all.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Mr. Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) rose—

Mrs. Castle: I am sorry, but I am not giving way. I am trying to give others a chance. I shall not take interventions. It is obvious that if the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend had tabled a motion he would have had to reveal his deep ignorance of the fact that the problem of the non-resident children and the cost of continuing the child allowance to them are real factors. Here is a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury who did not know that it would add £45 million to the cost of the new child benefit if the Conservative Party were not to renege on the policy that it was advocating only a short time ago that we should temper the loss of child tax allowance to non-resident children. The right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend had to remind him that a Conservative amendment was moved to the Child Benefit Bill along the lines I have indicated.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The right hon. Lady, who has at last grudgingly given way, will remember that she and the late Member for Rotherham agreed to look at the matter again, but that the present Government have refused to state their policy or to make regulations in relation

to children resident overseas. Was she surprised to hear the Minister stating that it is the present Government's policy not to do anything?

Mrs. Castle: My right hon. Friend did not say that, and what my right hon. Friend said did not surprise me, because the consideration of this problem, to which we pledged ourselves, has been continuing for many months. Unless we are to make large numbers of immigrant families much worse off at a stroke, when the child benefit is made available, we have to continue the child tax allowance in these cases. I am honest and realistic about this. We have to face those facts, although I may disagree with my right hon. Friend about some of his other figures.
The speech of the right hon. Gentleman was therefore totally irrelevant. The real argument is between my right hon. Friend and those of us on the Back Benches on the Government side of the House. We are the party that has been genuinely willing to face up to the implications of this matter and not merely to make empty promises.
I shall now proceed to the really interesting dialogue, which is between our Front Bench and the rest of us on the Government side. I tell my right hon. Friend that anything that I say to him in criticism—I shall make some criticisms—is in no sense a personal attack on him. All of us who listened to his speech were increasingly disturbed that he should have to argue so out of character, in such an unreal way. The more he argued the clearer it was that the Government have taken the wrong turning and that we on the Benches behind them must pull the Government back before it is too late.
I say to my right hon. Friend that if this matter had been pressed to a Division, many of us could not have supported the Government—not out of any wish to attack him personally but simply because there is a vital principle involved and we feel that the Government as a whole have not been frank with us. They have not been frank about their real reasons for postponing the scheme. They have not been frank about the cost of child benefit, or about the consequences of the postponement that has been announced—a postponement the length of


which my right hon. Friend tonight was not able to indicate. In other words, for the lifetime of this Government it means abandonment. We must use that word unless the Government intend to change their policy.
My right hon. Friend has not been allowed by his Government colleagues to assure us categorically that the scheme will be introduced in the lifetime of this Government. My right hon. Friend has not been able to tell us emphatically that if the working party of the TUC and the Labour Party comes forward with a formula to enable the scheme to proceed next year, taking all the public expenditure difficulties into account, the Government will be prepared to change their policy. That is what we have been asking for, and we have not had it, and that is why we could not support the Government in the Lobby.
As to cost, we all know the realities of public expenditure constraints, but I must tell my right hon. Friend that it will not do for the Government to say "We cannot afford a modest measure of child benefit". The figure of £200 million has been tossed about as the cost of one scheme that I was advocating. We cannot say that we cannot afford that—even if it were £200 million, which it is not—when the Government have this year spent £300 million on increasing the child tax allowance and are prepared to spend at least another £95 million—possibly £100 million—next year on increasing family allowances, both taking us in a diametrically opposite direction to the one that we should take if child benefit is ever to be introduced.
It is interesting to note the way in which we conduct our governmental financial affairs, when the Treasury unilaterally take that decision to spend £300 million in increasing child tax reliefs and, therefore, increasing the difficulties of switching to child benefit, without having to take the matter to the Cabinet discussions on public expenditure. It does not count as public expenditure. I put this in a Question to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury the other day, and his reply was as follows:
Child tax allowances are not classified as public expenditure and there is therefore no charge on the contingency reserve."—[Official Report, 24th June 1976; Vol. 913, c. 617–18.]

So the Government can chuck away £300 million and nobody can have a say in it.
Yet different accounting conventions obtain when some of us try to analyse the alleged cost of the child benefit scheme, as I am going to do now. For nearly £400 million we could have got a child benefit of over £3 a week. I must repeat, because it is relevant, that an increase in the child tax relief was never part of the pay negotiations with the TUC. I can prove it. It is not only that the Chancellor of the Exchequer told this House in his Budget Statement that the child tax increases would be unconditional, but also that they have been in operation since the beginning of June; that is, before the Special Congress of the TUC voted on the pay policy.
The Chancellor says it is right that child tax relief should be treated separately, on its own merits. So he cannot say that he was compelled to do this as part of its own merits. So he cannot say that is why it was always assumed that the increase in child tax relief would automatically be followed by an increase in the level of child benefit, and that the Government were prepared to stand realistically by their pledge to increase the level of family support. That level of family support has declined, is declining and ought to be increased. By increasing the child allowance by 40p per child per week, the Government deliberately put up the transfer cost of moving to child benefit.
The Government now say that it is too late to afford a level of benefit that is attractive enough to enable one to sell to those concerned the switch from father to mother. In other words, there is no room left for what I call the sweetener for the switch. It is said that we cannot even afford a break-even rate of £2.64p. I do not accept that and I shall tell the House why.
I have never been satisfied with the figure given by the Government as to the cost of a level of benefit of that kind. I shall not compete with the Opposition in trying to take on a hair-shirt about reducing public expenditure because the Government have their own public expenditure plans. Indeed, the move to child benefit was included in those plans. The introduction of the child benefit was included in the public expenditure White


Paper. It was safeguarded, sacrosanct and earmarked to be financed out of the contingency reserve. That reserve has not been used up. To say that we cannot now afford it is to say that we have switched our priorities, and we on the Back Benches cannot tolerate that.
Let us get a clearer and firmer idea of the cost. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services now has to do what I had to do—namely, to battle for every £1 million of public expenditure. We have been given various figures. The figure of £200 million has been bandied about, and then the Prime Minister used the figure of £300 million. Assertions of that kind may make people's blood run cold. Let us be more specific. The latest figure of the cost sent to me by my right hon. Friend in a recent letter amounts to £180 million. That varies considerably from the figure which I was given before I left of £110 million.
The answer seems to be that the cost of retaining child tax allowances for nonresident children is about £45 million, and I accept that. If we are to care for the non-resident children, the question that has to be asked is whether that should be done at the expense of support for our own children or whether it should borne as part of general Government accountancy.
The Chancellor's give-away of £300 million in increased child tax relief does not come out of contingency reserve. Why should the maintenance of child tax relief for non-resident children come out of contingency reserve? I have never accepted that argument, although I agree that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a tough time arguing these matters, but then one always has a tough time in Government.
There is a further mystical phrase in the letter I received from the Minister of State. He said that the total of £155 million was much nearer than the figure I had been told about. Then he went on to say:
All the above figures are at 1975 survey prices and are not fit for publication.
He went on to say that at 1977 prices—that is to say in actual money terms that may emerge in 1977—the cost becomes £185 million. I fail to understand that point. The cost of £2·64p per child is the same in 1977 as it was in 1975. If

one is to say that there will be an automatic uprating of all the costs of all the items of public expenditure on the basis of the 1975 survey, the contingency reserve is presumably uprated as well and more money is available.
I remain convinced that the basic cost of the break-even rate of child benefit of £2·64p is about £110 million. The problem of the non-resident child should be spread over Government spending as a whole and should not be concentrated at the expense of our own children in this way. The Government have provided adequately for that in the contingency reserve but we find that there will he a switch from that important social policy of child benefit.
If, therefore, the Government now come along—and that is what I am afraid of—and say that the contingency reserve is there and still unspent but they will not allow us to have as much money out of it for child benefit, I believe it means that there has been a switch in our priorities. The postponement of the child benefit scheme is merely the first round of the next instalment of public expenditure cuts. It is a kind of advance cut and it is done at the expense of children and at the expense of a vital principle of our social policy. I tell my right hon. Friend that we are not going to take it. Even if the Government's arguments are accepted, and I do not accept them, we believe that it is better to have a more modest rate even than the breakeven rate. It is better to have about £2·50 than nothing at all.
Here we come to the second round of the Government argument. We are told that the benefit will not be big enough to make the switch from the father's pay packet to the mother's purse acceptable. In his statement on 25th May, announcing that child benefit was to be abandoned, my right hon. Friend read us a list of figures explaining the effect on take-home pay of the cancellation of the child tax relief and the transfer to the mother in the form of child benefit. Those were figures which we were led to believe brought whistles of dismay from the TUC. We were told that even the abolition of the under-eleven child tax relief would have reduced the take-home pay by £3 a week for the two-child family, £4 for the three-child family and nearly £8 for the large family


of six. Those figures were supposed to have led to whistles of astonishment and trembles of anxiety.
Let us be precise about what we are talking about because there are only about 65,000 families with six children or more in the country. That is less than one half of 1 per cent. of all male employees. The assumption behind the horrifying figure of £8 is that all those six children are under elevent because if they are not they, of course, still get child tax relief.
I have consulted my experts—I still have a few to help me though they do not come from the Department of Health and Social Security. They inform me that in a maximum of 20 per cent. of those families would all the children be under eleven. When we talk of workers facing £8 a week deduction in take-home pay therefore we are speaking of about 0·1 per cent. of all male employees—and for that we are to be encouraged to abandon a major principle.
I want to say seriously to my right hon. Friend—and this is the essence of our case—the less money that we have to spend on the levels of child benefit, the more important it is to introduce child benefit at the same time as extending the payment to the first child. That is all he has on offer to make it attractive. That is why we have to dig our heels in and will continue to do that. Paying family allowance to the first child throws away the likelihood of being able to offer any inducement to fathers to make the switch in the next few difficult years that lie ahead.
This is the point which has been plugged by a very respected and authoritative member of the General Council of the TUC, Mr. Harry Irwin, deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union. I wish that my right hon. Friend would go and have a chat with Harry Irwin—better still, that he would get the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Prime Minister to do so. Mr. Irwin is blazing mad at the abandonment of the scheme and keeps saying to me time and again, "Barbara, if we do not do it now, when we extend the payment for the first child, we shall never do it. We will kill it." He has also authorised me to say that at no time has

the General Council of the TUC decided that the scheme ought to be deferred. He told me, "If anyone tells you that it has would you please ask him to give the date? No doubt we can then turn up the minutes."
Mr. Irwin also pointed out that the demand for the introduction of the scheme next April is contained in the social contract document which has just been carried by 9 million of the members of the TUC at its special Congress. He said to me, "There it is. No one can get away from it. It is trade union policy."
Therefore, I say to my right hon. Friend that I welcome the setting up of a working party with the TUC and that those of us who are members of it will go through these possibilities line by line. We believe the trade union movement has been severely libelled by the accusations that the scheme had to be abandoned as part of the price to get the unions to accept the pay policy. Of course there will be some male chauvinists among them as there are everywhere, but that is not the official line of the trade union movement, and it is libeling it to suggest that it is.
We shall, in that working party, say to the trade unions, "What, at different levels of the available money, facing all that this will mean in the rate of child benefit and the consequences for take-home pay, are you prepared to accept?" If the working party comes back with recommendations which make it clear that the full child benefit scheme could be introduced next April without doing violence to public expenditure difficulties, and without causing a breach in trade union support for the pay policy, will the Government pledge tonight that they will accept those recommendations?
I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services cannot act alone in these matters. I know that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are abroad. But I say to him that we are fighting for him against them and that we shall go on doing so.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. D. E. Thomas: It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). I was glad to hear her make reference to the deputy


general secretary of my union, the Transport and General Workers' Union, although I am only an ordinary and unsponsored member of it.
When the Secretary of State for Social Services made his announcement on this matter, I pleaded with him to talk again to the TUC about it. He lectured me about the social contract. But I stand firm with my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State tonight. This pledge was within the social contract, and the social contract is about pay policy and about social policy—that, indeed, is the whole essence of the social contract. I hope that the Secretary of State will take to heart what my right hon. Friend has said on that issue.
I also very much endorse what my right hon. Friend said about tax allowances and the relationship between them and public expenditure. I have always failed to understand why in housing policy, for example, it was never possible to take the tax reliefs on mortgages and switch them into other forms of housing support. I have always been given the same argument that tax allowances on mortgages and mortgage interest do not count as public expenditure and therefore a switch of resources in that way was not possible. So it seems that negative spending is possible but positive spending is not. That seems to be incredible social economics which the Treasury and the Department should look at seriously. Indeed, there has been talk tonight of working parties, and there should be an inter-departmental working party on the issue of what we mean by positive and negative public expenditure. I wish that there was a Treasury Minister here to answer some of these points tonight.
I feel very strongly about this issue because I see it as the collapse of a major plank in the social programme of the Labour Party. Hon. Gentlemen opposite know that we on this Bench have always endorsed fully the social programme of this Government in terms of pay bed legislation, education legislation and housing policy. It is very sad for us to see this major plank of family poverty legislation being postponed indefinitely.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn was responsible for bringing before this House the major support of incomes in pensions. I only regret that her second plank of family support is not

being introduced by the Government. I cannot accept that the granting of 30p, in terms of the £1 family allowance for the first child, which is what it means, is anything but a shadow of what the real scheme should be about. The whole basis of the scheme is that it gives a guaranted income as of right and removes dependence on means-tested benefits.
We have some 14 million children in the United Kingdom, 1 million of whom are in households which are in poverty. There are, of course, within those households, those who claim family income supplement. But a matter of deep concern for us all, even for the Conservatives—and I will not waste any time talking about the hypocrisy we have heard from this Front Bench tonight—is that there is such a poor take-up of means-tested benefits. Of particular concern is the take-up level of FIS, which I believe is only about 25 to 30 per cent. The whole purpose of introducing the child benefit scheme was that it moved away from dependence on the means-tested benefits. The fact is that dependence on means-tested benefits has increased since the social security system was introduced by the great Labour Administration of 1945. It is a sad reflection of the moral state of the Labour Party today that it is turning its back on a major plank of social policy such as this.
The minor difficulties which have been advanced by the Government for not introducing the minimum benefit level of £2·64 do not stand up to scrutiny. There is the question of the departmental advertising budget within the Department of Health and Social Security. It seems to me that it is not outside the bounds of possibility that there is money even under public expenditure cuts for expenditure on advertising under this Government. One has only to look at the money spent on defence recruitment advertising, for example. There is a big public expenditure commitment to advertising, yet there is no money to explain to ordinary working families that are losing money from the husband's pay packet to have it restored in the housewife's purse. This is beyond the bounds of explanation.
The Department of Health and Social Security is continually advertising benefits which are complicated. It advertises the whole supplementary benefit system, the


mobility allowances, which are so difficult to get, and the attendance allowance. That is all being done, yet the same Department claims that it is impossible to advertise benefits which would have a substantial effect on the incomes of poor families.
I stress that one of the major aims of this proposal is that it brings benefit to those who are below the tax threshold. There are some 200,000 odd families who are too poor to pay tax and who therefore do not benefit from the child tax allowances. This means that the people who are suffering by the decision to postpone this benefit are those who need help most in a situation of inflation. I was trying to quote figures late on Thursday night to indicate that the inflation rate for low income families was some 4 per cent. higher than the average. The effect of this is that we are impoverishing people below the tax threshold even more by not introducing this benefit.
The Treasury has now decided to withdraw food subsidies. The justification put forward when the decision was announced was that there were other ways of helping poor families, that food subsidies were too universal in their application and that there were other universal benefits through the claw-back system which could replace them as a means of support. This child benefit was indicated to be the one which could help these poor families who benefited so much from food subsidies. It was estimated that to a family with two children they were worth 70p a week. Their withdrawal has meant that these families will be devoid of the strength of the support that they bring.
My major argument, therefore, is that we have had no clear justification from the Treasury Bench, neither now nor when the statement was first made, of the decision not to introduce this benefit. I think that I know what their justification is. It is the whole argument about public expenditure. This is a case where at least my party stands firm, together with our colleagues on this Bench. Since I have been in this House, we have voted against every public expenditure cut with the exception of defence.
My argument is that, if this is a debate about overall public expenditure, the next

question that we must ask ourselves is which groups in our society are most deserving of higher public expenditure. In answer to that question, I say that families with children, especially families below the tax threshold with children, are the most deserving of public expenditure, and not the type of expenditure which we are still seeing on the MRCA and such junk on which this Government spend money.
If it is the public expenditure argument, which is the real argument in the corridors of power—every expenditure argument is one about priorities—what astonishes me is that this Government are giving such a low priority to tackling family poverty. That is why the three Members of my party will vote against the child benefit regulations when they come before the House.

8.59 p.m.

Mrs. Helene Hayman: It is a great pleasure to be called immediately after the speech of the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Thomas), who, I must say, is much better on social security matters than when lie is talking about nationalism. I wish that he had similar principles in other parts of his politics. There is no doubt that his was a much better speech and a much more sympathetic one than that of the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin). The right hon. Gentleman demanded that Government supporters should stand up and be counted—which I am willing to do any time he likes. But, having heard his speech, strongly as I feel on the matter I find it difficult to feel any emotion that could be construed as support for him.

Mr. Tom Litterick: Where is he, anyway?

Mrs. Hayman: He has gone away somewhere. The shock of hearing the way that the motion had been framed was such that it led him into a huddle with the Opposition Chief Whip in an endeavour to discover what they could do to sort out this counting issue.
The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford was much better on what this Government had done wrong than he was on what the Conservative Party could do right on this issue. We know


that the Opposition have no case whatsoever on their record. We have no faith in putting the fate of families with children into the hands of right hon. and hon. Members opposite. But just because we have no faith in them, it does not mean that we can support the Government in their present policy on child benefit.
I do not think it is necessary tonight to adumbrate the advantages of the child benefit scheme. That was all done a long time ago. It was done on the Second Reading debate and throughout the Committee stage of the Child Benefit Bill. It has also been done in speeches in the House this evening.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was talking about the minimal cash advantages of a low-cost scheme, he was talking about the average family being a few pence better off. But that is not true of the poorest families. What is so important about a proper child benefit scheme is that it redistributes, and not just that it redistributes within the family or between husband and wife, because in most families that does not matter. It is the exceptional family in which there is a mean husband and the problem arises of the wife having to get the money from the Post Office. Most families recognise what family income is all about. Most families are not so ignorant or foolish that they do not understand that money from the Post Office is as good as money in the pay packet. It is not like that for the majority of families.
There are, of course, important reasons why that cash benefit to the mother is essentially one that should go to the woman, for budgeting reasons and all the reasons that the Select Committee looked into. But it is not just that redistribution that matters; it is redistribution between the higher taxpayer, the taxpayer and the non-taxpayer that is so important.
That is why I lost any sympathy I had with the right hon. Gentleman when he suddenly became concerned with the people on the higher rates of tax, and with putting the system right for them. He must have changed his mind. It was very early in the morning when we did a broadcast together and he castigated the Government for their scheme because it would help people like him and me,

who were on higher rates of tax. He seems to have changed his mind about that, because one of his priorities now is to make sure that no one paying tax at a higher rate should be worse off.
I say frankly to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that I would accept a cheap child benefit scheme as long as no one on standard rate of tax was worse off, because the people who matter are those on standard rate and those who are below the tax threshold.
Nothing I have heard in all the rationales and explanations, in public and private, about abandoning the scheme, for changing it, or for the extension of the family allowance for the first child, has in any way convinced me that the Government are right.
Far from this year being the wrong year in which to introduce the child benefit scheme, I think it was exactly the right year in which to introduce it—for several reasons. One was that we in this House of Commons had passed an Act of Parliament in order to implement the child benefit scheme in 1977, and we had pledges and assurances that that would happen.
Another good reason was that we had the support of the trade union movement, because it was written into the social contract that we would have a child benefit scheme.
A third good reason—this is the one that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) rightly stressed—was that we were extending to the first child a cash allowance. I honestly believe that all the problems about transfer become that much more difficult if we go for the compromise solution of £1 a week for the first child and make no attempt at a change from the tax system to the child benefit system. We even had the building in Washington New Town—the building to administer the scheme—free of the high alumina cement that was such a problem.
Some of us have longer memories of this row and remember the date not of 1977 but of 1976 for the introduction of the scheme. It comes a little hard when we hear the Government Front Bench saying now that 1976 would have been the year to introduce the scheme within the pay policy and the constraints on public expenditure, but that 1977 is difficult.
I was not as "hard line" as I should have been. I did not get on the Committee. I was not as "hard line" as I should have been over 1976. That is why we have to be hard line about 1977. It will not be "jam tomorrow" for ever.
Through inflation, child tax allowances had fallen behind. They were undervalued, and we had to give more support to families with children. What did we do? What was the Government's fatal error? It was in the Chancellor's Budget. I take responsibility for not recognising at the time the danger of what was being done with child tax allowances. Hon. Members on both sides of the House were too naïve.
If the Chancellor in his Budget speech on 6th April, as well as saying that he was asking the trade union movement to accept a lower level of wage settlements in return for the Government's making sure that wages were not in confetti, had said that part of the social wage contract was an increase in family allowances, he could have spent £300 million on the cash side instead of on the tax allowance side. We would not then have had all this talk about not being able to introduce the scheme, because we would not have put the idea into people's minds that the transfer was irreconcilable with pay policy. We should not have had talk of the difficulties of the transfer, because we should have been half way towards the child benefit scheme. We should have had the added push of the first child allowance and we should have been home and dry.
My right hon. Friend says that the message has not got across. Who has tried to put it across? No one has tried to put it across. The Government have not fought and lost the battle for the working people; they have fought the battle in the first place. What is worse, they are not only not fighting the battle, they are creating their own self-fulfilling prophecy every time Ministers tell the House that to bring in the child benefit scheme would be incompatible with a wages policy. They are making a rod for their own backs.
All hon. Members are committed to child benefit, although we may argue when it should be introduced. Tonight we should commit ourselves to the job

of getting the message across and showing the value of the scheme as a measure to help the poorest families in our society. It gives me no pleasure to know that the Government are embarrassed over the debate. It gives me no pleasure to know that a vote will not, apparently, be risked. The Opposition Front Bench on the one hand ask us to stand up and be counted and, on the other hand, cannot even produce a form of words saying what they want or what the Government have done wrong. I am happy to rebel, but they will not give me a chance to rebel.
For all that the Conservatives say about this issue, and because they will willingly pick up this rod with which to beat the Government, it is worth saying that they have far more problems than we have in terms of educating their party on the benefits of the scheme. It does not matter whether we go home at 10 o'clock tonight or stay to do the other business of the House. It does not matter whether, tomorrow, the newspapers present this as a Government step-down in the face of Back Bench pressure or a great Tory tactical victory in the war of nerves that is tearing Westminster apart. What matters is the welfare of children.
Last year we passed the Children Act. We put into it a very important clause, which I would recommend to the Government to give them the strength and courage to look again to see where they have gone wrong and to introduce a better scheme. That clause simply said that first consideration should be given to the welfare of the child. That is what we are asking the Front Bench to do tonight.

9.12 p.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I hope that the Civil Service in particular, but everyone else who may study Hansard, will realise that the House of Commons tonight is speaking for public opinion and that the Treasury Bench has got it wrong. It is a long time since the point was made that it would be useful to amalgamate the child tax allowance and the family allowance. It was made even before family allowances were introduced. Lord Keynes brought out the idea as long ago as 1939, and there have been many social reformers who have tried to advocate the same reform ever since. It used to be known as the Rhys


Williams scheme, not because of anything I have done but because my mother published a pamphlet as long ago as 1942 in which this idea was put forward. But why is it especially relevant now?
Firstly, because tax allowances now are far larger than they were even a few years ago. I turned up a pamphlet which I wrote in 1969—it was called "Redistributing Income in a Free Society"—in which I calculated the value of the tax allowances as they then were. A personal allowance for a single man was then worth £70. It is now worth £257. For a married man whose wife was not at work the allowance was £127. It is now £380. For a married man the allowance, with the earned income allowance for the wife, was £193. Now under the Chancellor's proposals it is to be £637. So there have been substantial increases in the value of certain of the tax allowances.
But not in the child tax benefit. The children have been left behind. Even after the Chancellor's reform the child allowance will be worth only about £105 as I calculate it, and it was worth £87 in 1969. So the child tax allowance has not kept pace with inflation, or anything like it.
Then we have to consider retail prices. The retail price index is no fair measure of changes in prices as they affect families because it is an average, overall index which takes no account of family size. It is adverse to families in the way in which it works.
I can be most brief if I quote from some calculations I made just before the Budget this year. Using information taken from the official retail price index and the Family Expenditure Survey, it appears that an average household of two adults and two children spent about £13·60 a week on food in January 1974 but now has to spend about £19 a week for the same items; in other words, an increase of £5·50 a week. For a single person the increase is about £2·16.
Family allowances were raised in 1975 by 60p for the two-child family, but the increase is taxed in most cases. Using round figures and allowing for the change in child tax allowances in 1974, the average family is now at least £3 a week worse off than a single person in buying normal household essenials as a

result of the price changes over the last two years. For larger families the effect of inflation has been even worse.
In his Budget, the Chancellor confirmed that. He said:
For a number of reasons, the real incomes of families with dependent children have fallen behind in the last few years, relative to those of the majority of single people. Since 1972 policy on low pay and equal pay has tended to help single people more than married people and married people with children least of all.
Although last year I made the first increase in family allowances since 1968, the child tax allowances have not been increased since 1974. As a result families with children have been bearing a disproportionately high part of the total tax burden".—[Official Report, 6th April 1976; Vol. 909, c. 274–5.]
However, even with the increases in the child tax allowances which the Chancellor announced, they still have not anything like kept pace with changes in the value of money.
Again, I should like to draw attention to the contrast between British rates of family benefit and the rates in the Common Market. In Belgium, for instance, a mother with two children gets six times the rate of benefit that applies here. In Germany she gets five times our rate. In passing, I might mention that both those countries have lower birth rates than we have here. Germany brought in this particular reform which we now call the child benefit scheme, two years ago, without popular resentment or fuss, and I do not think that the Government are right in assuming that for some reason the British electorate—or British working men—are less enlightened than their German counterparts.
Another thing that must be brought into this balance of calculation is that we have moved forward towards the concept of equal pay. One might use the slogan "Equal take-home pay for equal work." Why should a married man with children take home more pay than a married man without children who has done precisely the same work? One might say that that is only a cheap point, and, that we all know the historical reasons. However, we have moved from the era in which pressure could be placed upon employers to give more money to men than to women, because the men had family responsibilities; and, in particular, more to married men with children than


to single men. When I was directly engaged in personnel management, that was still a concept that had survived from the nineteenth century, but now it is dead. We must make good to family men what their wives need by some other means.
We have to recognise, too, that the status of woman has changed altogether dramatically even since the end of the war. We do not now look upon housewives as an appendage or even a junior partner in marriage. The mother is a citizen with vitally important responsibilities, and it is quite wrong that women with families should not have the same degree of self-respect and power of choice as women who are able to go out to work. Women who go out to work, I concede, have had the advantages of women's liberation and they are able to get the benefit—or soon will, we hope—of equal pay. However, the nearer one gets to the kitchen sink the further back one gets into the Middle Ages. It is wrong that we should give mothers functions without the certainty and self-respect which go with a clear and regular cash competence. It is also wrong for the children.
Let us look at the facts in the National Food Survey and the actual things bought by the larger families. They spend less per head on meat, milk and cheese and more on bread and potatoes—for obvious reasons. The mothers have to make do with the less nourishing foods, by and large. Goodness knows what many poor families have done while the price of potatoes have been so high.
Then one has to refer to the large number of one-parent families. We talk about one-parent families, but we do too little for those families that are the worst hit by inflation. We have a cohort of tens of thousands of underfed and under-cared for children waiting for a square deal and a square meal, while the Labour Party sets up another committee.
It is fair to ask where the money would come from. It does not require a money allocation from the State to mothers. What we are looking at here is a matter of incomes policy, because the whole question is one of the redistribution of income. I am not talking of the redistribution of income between man and wife within the immediate tax and benefit situation. We have to look at

the incomes policy as it unfolds as a matter of Government policy in tackling inflation. I was told in a Treasury Answer that last year's £6 policy cost about £3,000 million in terms of extra spending power. This year, I suppose the new incomes policy will mean a release of at least £2,000 million in terms of extra spending power.
Why do the Labour Government choose to give higher wages as the only means of beating the index? It is clear that the Labour Party is the party of organised labour versus the rest. It is no longer a party of social concern. The real issues that we are debating tonight are not pence a week for this group or that, but the much larger questions of the status of women, their sanity and self-respect, and the breakdown of family unity. Motherhood is turning into a poverty-stricken interlude in a working career; and that is wrong.
We must think, too, of the nourishment and care of thousands of children. That is apparently amusing to the Minister. The Secretary of State in his amazing and regrettable speech made the trade unions of this country sound like minotaurs that are able to be appeased from laying waste the land only by the sacrifice of the children. But that is an appalling judgment and it is absolutely untrue of the leaders of British trade unions and of British working men as a whole.
The question is: when inflation is reducing our standard of life, who should be protected—women and children, or the men in the powerful unions? The Labour Party has given its answer, and it will not be forgotten. The decision that the Government have taken on child benefit will soon be seen to have been the fatal mistake of the Labour Party in this Parliament.

9.24 p.m.

Mr. George Cunningham: I shall be brief, in order to be kind to the Opposition, but I do not know why I should be since what we should be doing tonight is passing a substantive motion on this very important matter. The exact words of that motion could have been argued about, but it could have been the lowest common denominator held by all those who regret that Government's decision to suggest to the House that we ought to


postpone the implementation of the scheme.
The Opposition know that had we moved such a motion there would have been enough of us on the Government side to vote for and carry it. That is how the House of Commons is supposed to behave, but it can behave in that way only if the Opposition are prepared to use their time and their facility for moving motions to move that kind of motion. We know why they did not do so; it was because they felt that if they put 300 votes into the Lobby and we put in 20, we would have got the credit. That is the way in which the House has to work, but unless the Opposition are prepared to use their time in that way this House might as well give up any opportunity of second guessing any Government and put up with what the Government say.
Secondly, we are going through a repetition of the nonsense of last year, when we had the Treasury operating on the tax side and the Department of Health and Social Security operating on the social security side, with inadequate co-ordination between the two. We received assurances in January last that the liaison between the two would be greatly improved for the future. That was after the earnings rule nonsense. It seems that so soon after that decision the liaison has not at all improved.
A number of hon. Members have talked in terms of take-home pay or child benefit. We have also talked of the need to educate the public about the whole subject. We could begin by ceasing to draw that distinction. Child benefits are part of take-home pay. They are certainly as much part of take-home pay as what is in the husband's pay packet. If we use language in such a way that that is concealed, we are doing the cause no good.
This having become a charade debate, because of what the Opposition failed to do, it is as well to note that next week, or perhaps the week after there will be a real opportunity to do something practical on this matter. This is to ensure that when the Finance Bill comes back from Committee to the Floor of the House the Government's proposal to increase child tax allowances by £60 a head, which, as the Bill is framed, will extend until the next amendment, should

be amended so that the increase applies only to the present year. That would mean that there would be £300 million available from next April for switching over to child benefit. At the least, it would mean that next spring, in the Finance Bill, anyone—not only a Minister—would be able to propose that that money should be so used. If the Finance Bill is passed as it stands, no one other than a Minister will next year be able to reduce the tax allowances available for children.
I hope that, this debate having proved of no practical value, we shall decide on the Finance Bill to do that little thing to ensure that we have further opportunities to achieve the purpose on which it is clear from the debate so many people are agreed.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I shall attempt to deal with the value of the debate as I contribute to it. Its first practical effect is that it has illustraed the wide measure of agreement among everybody except those on the Treasury Bench about the Government's decision to abandon child benefit. The Secretary of State has been without a friend on either side of the House throughout the evening, though I see that the Minister of State is anxious to leap into the breach as a friend in a few minutes.
Nobody on either side of the House has had a good word to say for the decision. After the Secretary of State's disgraceful speech, I am not surprised that he decided that not enough hon. Members will support his decision at 10 o'clock even if Whipped.
Perhaps I had better begin by reminding the House how much agreement there has been between us in the past, as there was a certain amount of ritual abuse from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) and the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) about our position. One of the startling things about the Government's position is that they are trying to go back on what everybody was agreed upon until the Secretary of State rose in the House on 25th May. Until then, every political party represented in the House and every significant organisation outside, including the TUC, was agreed on the implementation of the child benefit scheme.
I heard the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield tell millions of radio listeners this morning that she voted for child benefit last year. She never did, because nobody has ever voted against it. Not one hon. Member has ever made a speech against it. The Secretary of State's announcement on 25th May was the first occasion on which anybody indicated that he disagreed. The right hon. Gentleman and his Cabinet colleagues were the first, and are so far publicly the only people, to break ranks with the previous agreement.
Only twice in the evolution of the child benefit scheme has there been controversy. When we first produced the scheme in the tax credit Green Paper, the Conservative Government allowed incautious words to be included about the possibility of the child credit not being paid to the mother. We faced an uproar from women's organisations throughout the country, and there were 300,000 signatures on a petition presented by the right hon. Member for Blackburn before we hastily retracted and committed ourselves to child benefits payable to the mother.
The only other controversy was about the April 1976 start. One feels a little chastened when the right hon. Member for Blackburn attacks us for being hypocritical and inconsistent. The only time we challenged her proposals last year was when we pressed a vote in support of the original intention of an April 1976 start. That was a substantive amendment. It was not carried, because not enough Labour members abstained, and the Government got away with it. They did not abstain, because they were given assurances, no doubt in good faith, by the right hon. Member for Blackburn that they did not have to support the Tories on that occasion, because in April 1977 the scheme would definitely be introduced. When the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield recalls her record on this I can only say that last year we told her so. Last year she had the opportunity of voting for a Conservative amendment that would have had it in the bag, but she was persuaded by promises, which her Front Bench have completely reneged on, that the scheme would come in April 1977.
It is worth recalling that the wide measure of agreement among all political parties and groups interested in social policy

came into being because of the virtues of the child benefit scheme, which were quite regardless of the level of benefit that the economic circumstances at the time might allow. We all accept that in present economic circumstances it would not be possible to introduce a scheme at anything like the level of benefit that everyone would have wished. We Conservatives would say that is because of the Government's mismanagement of the economy, the disasters of the social contract, their squandering of funds, and other matters.
There are other virtues which led the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield, the Child Poverty Action Group, and others to accept a scheme although at a disappointingly low level of benefit. First, the child benefit scheme would end the tangle of family allowances, child tax allowances and national insurance child additions. That was a feature of our tax credit proposal, adopted by the Government—that it would turn the different provisions in different systems of tax and benefit into one pool of money so that we could use that to provide a child benefit tax free to all mothers, including those below the tax threshold.
The second reason for the advantage of the structure is that it is aimed to ease the poverty trap and give an incentive to work. This is something on which feelings are not confined to Members on the Opposition side of the House. There can be no Member of this House who does not know that the resentments about the present system of family support comes from the low wage earner who is struggling to try to earn something for himself and for his family but discovers he has no encouragement to earn when he sees what is available to those on national insurance benefit without working. A particular advantage of Child benefits is that they would go to the low wage earner and would be an advantage that he would get to a greater extent than the national insurance beneficiary, who would have his child addition reduced to take account of the new benefit. Another reason which should appeal to Members on both sides is that this benefit would be uncomplicated by the cohabitation rule, which so bedevils many one-parent families at the moment.
Most important of all to everyone except the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the transfer from the pay packet to the handbag. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price) has reminded us, this was always a positive advantage of the scheme contemplated throughout. It is astonishing to read the Cabinet minutes, in which it apparently suddenly began to dawn upon those present that this was a feature of the scheme when it had actually been advocated as a benefit of the scheme from beginning to end.
We still see it as a benefit. It is a reflection of the changed status of housewives and mothers in society—a change which I believe is acceptable particularly by the age group likely to have families and likely to be affected. One cannot help feeling that in this particular case the reason that it has been challenged only by the present Treasury Front Bench is that they perhaps no longer have such young families, and are not in touch with changed social attitudes towards women and motherhood—and the fact that the Labour Party is not led by a woman.
I have listed benefits that would flow from the child benefit scheme regardless of the level of benefit. It was a great social reform, supported by everyone in public life, and for that reason free from controversy—until today.
The child benefit scheme was quite different from what the Government are proposing now. They are proposing a family allowance for the first child, subject to tax and clawback. The cynicism that enables the Secretary of State to present that as a first step towards child benefit beggars belief. His right hon. and hon. Friends have demonstrated to the satisfaction of us all that the Government's policies this year have actually gone in the opposite direction.
The Government's cynicism in saying that this is a step in the right direction is made worse by the fact that their proposals do nothing for the poorest families, in particular those below the tax threshold. Their scheme also runs the risk, when one considers families in receipt of family income supplement and means-tested benefits paying tax and subject to clawback on family allowance for

the first child, that there are families who could be worse off if they applied for the Government's new benefit, in precisely the same way as there are single-parent families worse off now if they apply for the child interim benefit. To describe that scheme as a step towards child benefit is a disgraceful attempt to mislead the House about what the Government have decided.
Most of the reasons for the Government's U-turn have been adequately dealt with. The Government are asking the entire House of Commons to march back in the opposite direction to the road we have all gone along in social policy for families.
Public expenditure has been thrown in as a reason by the Secretary of State, largely by putting up Aunt Sallies in the form of highly expensive versions of the scheme that no one is advocating and then knocking them down. But public expenditure was not the main point of the argument; the Cabinet leaks have made that clear. There are constraints on public expenditure which everyone has to accept. A scheme of nil cost to public funds would have been very difficult to accept—although the Child Poverty Action Group was even prepared to accept that—and the transfer from taxpayers to non-taxpayers under a nil cost scheme would have made many standard rate taxpayers worse off, and that was not advocated.
But the Government have found £95 million for their pathetic scheme. That is enough for £2·50 plus residual tax allowances for those with children over 11. The Secretary of State cannot deny that. On 25th May, he said:
I cannot pretend that I am happy to make the announcement. The introduction of the full scheme without premium would have cost precisely the same amount, £95 million. The new level of child benefit would have been £2·50. That would have been substantially paid for by a greater reduction in take-home pay."—[0ffical Report, 25th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 293.]
There are other variants on what one can do with that money—or, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) has shown, with less money—without interfering with public expenditure constraints. Variants are described by Pat Healy this morning in The Times, and others can be explored. For a much lower expenditure


of public funds, a much more worthwhile step towards child benefits could have been taken.
The real reasons, as we know from the leaks, was that the pay-packet-to-handbag argument suddenly occurred to a few reactionaries in the Cabinet. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor were terrified by it, and they manipulated first the Cabinet into thinking that that was the view of the trade union movement and then the trade union movement into thinking that that was the view of the Cabinet, and tricked both bodies into this situation. The Government, having tricked the Cabinet and the trade union movement, are apparently contemplating tricking the House tonight by avoiding a vote on the motion.
In turning to this, my last point, I shall deal with the half-hearted leaping to the Government's defence by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham), about Adjournment debates. All of us have taken part in many debates on the Adjournment. It is a strange but long-established constitutional procedure by which the most clear-cut decision on the Government's position can be made on the Adjournment. On the argument used by hon. Members on the Government Benches, Chamberlain could have abandoned the Government's business for the night and carried on with the conduct of the war when the House debated an Adjournment motion on the Norwegian campaign. As we all know, he was in fact brought down on just such a motion.
A substantive motion could have been amended. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, for instance, could join me in producing a motion, from the Government's point of view: "reaffirming the Government's commitment to end family poverty; regretting that it is not practicable to introduce child benefit now; welcoming the setting up of the working party; urging the working party to be speedy in its deliberations and in reporting its conclusions". On such a motion the hon. Member and all hon. Members opposite would vote with the Government.
The Government will not vote tonight. There is only one reason why they will not do so. There is no other reason why they are abandoning their late night busi-

ness and why the Secretary of State for Industry, who has now entered the Chamber, will sadly have to go home. It is that the Government knew that they would be defeated. They knew that Parliament would not approve of that disgraceful speech and that disgraceful decision. They are attempting to deprive Parliament of the right to pass judgment on that decision. It is not an attempt that will succeed for much longer.

9.41 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Stanley Orme): The reason the Government will not vote tonight is that the argument between my hon. Friends, right hon. Friends and the Treasury Front Bench is a real one. It is an argument about the social conscience. It is about priorities and how those priorities should be implemented by a Labour Government. It has nothing to do with the fallacious arguments we heard from the Tory Benches. A week ago the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition was going to table a motion on this issue but she withdrew it.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: What is the right hon. Gentleman's evidence for that?

Mr. Orme: It is a well-informed leak. The reason the Opposition did not pursue the matter was the public expenditure argument, and they ducked it. So they thought that tonight by dividing on the Adjournment motion they would have the pleasure of seeing the genuine division that exists between many hon. Members on this side about the interpretation and adoption of this scheme—not about the principle. We are denying right hon. and hon. Members that pleasure.

Mrs. Audrey Wise: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the true face of the Conservative Opposition is shown by their repeated statement that it would be worth while introducing a scheme which actually spent less than the Government intend to spend on family support? That is the true face of Toryism.

Mr. Orme: I thank my hon. Friend This is the point I want to develop. I want to say something about the past policy of the Tory Party on this issue. When we talk about family allowances—

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Go on.

Mr. Orme: I shall talk about them because the Tories did not talk about them between 1970 and 1974.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Mr. Patrick Jenkin rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Minister does not give way, the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) must resume his seat.

Mr. Orme: I will give way if the normal courtesies are observed by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said to the Cabinet in his minute that families with children were getting substantially less support than the Tories provided in 1971 and 1972?

Mr. Orme: As I said previously, and as my right hon. Friend said, one must not believe everything one reads in the papers.

Mr. Jenkin: But the right hon. Gentleman said so.

Mr. Orme: No, he did not.
The Conservative Party fought an election in 1970 promising the introduction of the family allowance for the first child. The late Mr. Iain Macleod gave that firm promise. Mr. Frank Field, the gentleman who is creating a little stir at the moment, became a very strong Conservative supporter at that time because he believed that the Conservative Party would implement this scheme. I must say that during the four years between 1970 and 1974 I did not notice Mr. Field marching up and down Downing Street with a poster asking "Why have not the Conservatives carried out their manifesto promise?" The present policy of the Conservative Party is sheer hypocrisy and we are not going to fall for the type of argument which has been used by them tonight.
It has been said that the Conservative Party is led by a woman and that she understands these issues better than a man. Where does the right hon. Lady stand on major social issues? Where did she vote in this House on school milk, divorce reform, abortion and on race? Where does she stand on these issues?
I want to come to the arguments which my right hon. and hon. Friends raised during the debate. There is a genuine argument—it was deployed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman)—that the transfer ought to be made on a straight forward basis and that there would be no difficulty in selling that transfer. On the other hand, they argued that the time to introduce it was when the benefit was introduced for the first child because it would make it easier to sell the scheme. The fact has got to be faced that this scheme, which is a major social revolution—[An HON. MEMBER: "We have not got it."] It is not a funny matter, either. The scheme is a transfer of real economic power to women in this country, many of them working-class women, who with this money will have an independence that they have not had before.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Where is the scheme?

Mr. Orme: The Government have made it absolutely clear that this scheme has not been abandoned and will not be abandoned.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: What about the women who demonstrated in the Public Gallery earlier?

Mr. Orme: I wish the hon. Lady would allow me to develop the argument about the transfer because this is absolutely crucial.
On the question of transferring on the basis of a figure of £2·50—in other words, a straightforward transfer—obviously we would make adjustments in respect of working people in the poorest categories so that there would be no financial loss to any family, however poor it may be. When it comes to this transfer, the Government will make the social revolution stick. But to do this we need a net gain for the family as such. That is absolutely crucial. The argument has been used by Pat Healy and other people in the columns of The Times—namely, that all one needs is a straight transfer with no extra public expenditure.
Let us remember that Members of the Tory Party have said that they do not want to spend any more money—[HON. MEMBERS: "They want to spend


less."] They want to spend less and yet they want better benefits. That is a fallacious argument—[interruption.] I am embarking on a serious argument that involves implementation of this scheme—[HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] A first start will be made in April next year with the payment in respect of the first child—something that was never done by the Conservative Party.
I understand the arguments used by my right hon. and hon. Friends. We shall discuss these issues with the working party in which the Government will take part. It will then be possible to discuss these issues away from the present controversy. It must be remembered that the pay policy and the public expenditure situation have coincided with the implementation of this scheme. However Government are firmly on record that they will implement this scheme.

Mr. William Molloy: When the working party reports, will there be an opportunity for a sensible debate in this House? Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Government will not make the mistake, as they have tonight, of annoying many of us and of permitting the Conservative opposition to indulge in an orgy of hypocrisy?

Mr. Orme: I assure my hon. Friend that I should like to see an ordered debate in this House, but obviously the Opposition will not give us this opportunity.

Hon. Members: Vote.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that the Opposition spokesman was heard in reasonable silence.

Mr. Orme: The fact that the incomes policy and the public expenditure situation have coincided with the implementation of the scheme has meant that the priorities have to be examined. I know that every section of the people who are deeply involved—the TUC, the Labour Party and the Government—will examine those priorities. We shall want to discuss the issues and to debate them in the House of Commons. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] This is a serious issue. When my hon. Friends speak from personal experience, there is no difference between the Government Front Bench and those behind me on what we eventually want to achieve in our policy.
Apparently it is in order to quote one's personal experiences at the Dispatch Box. As the child of a one-parent family, I know what poverty is and know what the introduction of this scheme means to poor families. I believe in the scheme, as does my right hon. Friend and as do the Government. Are the Opposition prepared to spend the amount of public money needed for the full scheme? They are not.
The basic argument is that of phasing in, and it is interesting to recall that the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) said on 10th November 1970 that it shifted £180 million from the pockets of the men to the handbags of the women. That point of view may be over-estimated or under-estimated but at least it has implications of which no Government can be certain. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) challenged the right hon. Gentleman on that and he reiterated that phasing-in should take place.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn said that the scheme would cost £95 million, but that would bring in a benefit of only £2·45 a week. Frankly, if one is to sell the issue one has to have a benefit that is in excess of that figure. It is a figure about which there must be debate and one which the Labour party—

Mrs. Wise: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that £103 million was allocated in the Chancellor's current Budget for improving the position of people earning £4,500 and over. Perhaps he could suggest to the Chancellor that that is an area from which funds could be found for improving family benefit.

Mr. Orme: I take note of what my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise) said. She will remember that the right hon. Memfor Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) said that he wanted to protect the higher earners and that he believed in helping them while, at the same time, introducing the scheme. How are they to pay for that?
I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends that the Government's answer to that problem is for the working party to start as early as possible on negotiations with the people in the Labour movement who


believe in the scheme, and certainly not with the Opposition. [Interruption.] Earlier, we saw part of the human face of Conservatism, but look at the hon. Members who have arrived in the Chamber now. Those are the real faces of Toryism. The Government will go ahead, they will implement the scheme and we shall not back down in the face of the Opposition.

Mrs. Margaret Bain: Mrs. Margaret Bain (Dunbartonshire, East) rose—

Mr. Hamish Watt: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: The Question is, That this House do now adjourn—

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: There can be no point of order when the House has instructed me to put the Question.

I shall put the Question again.

Question put accordingly, That this House do now adjourn:—

The House divided: Ayes 259, Noes 0.

Division No. 202.]
AYES
10.0 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Hurd, Douglas


Aitken, Jonathan
Elliott, Sir William
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Alison, Michael
Emery, Peter
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)


Arnold, Tom
Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
James, David


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Eyre, Reginald
Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd &amp; W'df'd)


Awdry, Daniel
Fairbairn, Nicholas
Jessel, Toby


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Fairgrieve, Russell
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)


Baker, Kenneth
Farr, John
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)


Banks, Robert
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Jones, Arthur (Daventry)


Beith, A. J.
Fisher, Sir Nigel
Jopling, Michael


Bell, Ronald
Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Kaberry, Sir Donald


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Fookes, Miss Janet
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine


Benyon, W.
Forman, Nigel
Kershaw, Anthony


Berry, Hon Anthony
Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Kilfedder, James


Biggs-Davison, John
Fox, Marcus
Kimball, Marcus


Blaker, Peter
Fry, Peter
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)


Body, Richard
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
King, Tom (Bridgwater)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Kitson, Sir Timothy


Bottomley, Peter
Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Knight, Mrs Jill


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)
Knox, David


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Lane, David


Braine, Sir Bernard
Glyn, Dr Alan
Langford-Holt, Sir John


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
Latham, Michael (Melton)


Brotherton, Michael
Goodhart, Philip
Lawrence, Ivan


Bryan, Sir Paul
Goodhew, Victor
Lloyd, Ian


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Goodlad, Alastair
Loverldge, John


Buck, Antony
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Luce, Richard


Budgen, Nick
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
MacCormlck, Iain


Bulmer, Esmond
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
McCrindle, Robert


Burden, F. A.
Gray, Hamish
Macfarlane, Neil


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Griffiths, Eldon
MacGregor, John


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)


Channon, Paul
Grylls, Michael
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)


Churchill, W. S.
Hall, Sir John
McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Clark, William (Croydon S)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Marten, Nell


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Hampson, Dr Keith
Mates, Michael


Clegg, Walter
Hannam, John
Mather, Carol


Cockcroft, John
Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Maude, Angus


Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald


Cope, John
Hastings, Stephen
Mawby, Ray


Cordle, John H.
Havers, Sir Michael
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Corrie, John
Hawkins, Paul
Mayhew, Patrick


Costain, A. P.
Hayhoe, Barney
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Crawford, Douglas
Heath, Rt Hon Edward
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)


Critchley, Julian
Henderson, Douglas
Mills, Peter


Crouch, David
Heseltine, Michael
Miscampbell, Norman


Crowder, F. P.
Hicks, Robert
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)
Higgins, Terence L.
Moate, Roger


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Holland, Philip
Monro, Hector


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Hooson, Emlyn
Montgomery, Fergus


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Moore, John (Croydon C)


Drayson, Burnaby
Howell, David (Guildford)
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral


Durant, Tony
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)


Dykes, Hugh
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Hunt, John
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)




Mudd, David
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Tebbit, Norman


Neave, Alrey
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret


Nelson, Anthony
Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Neubert, Michael
Royle, Sir Anthony
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


Newton, Tony
St. John-Stevas, Norman
Thompson, George


Normanton, Tom
Scott, Nicholas
Townsend, Cyril D.


Nott, John
Scott-Hopkins, James
Trotter, Neville


Onslow, Cranley
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Tugendhat, Christopher


Osborn, John
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Page, John (Harrow Weat)
Shelton, William (Streatham)
Vaughan, Dr Gerard


Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Shepherd, Colin
Viggers, Peter


Parkinson, Cecil
Shersby, Michael
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Pattle, Geoffrey
Silvester, Fred
Wakeham, John


Penhallgon, David
Sims, Roger
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Percival, Ian
Sinclair, Sir George
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)


Peyton, Rt Hon John
Skeet, T. H. H.
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Pink, R. Bonner
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)
Wall, Patrick


Price, David (Eastlelgh)
Speed, Keith
Warren, Kenneth


Prior, Rt Hon James
Spence, John
Watt, Hamish


Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)
Weatherill, Bernard


Ralson, Timothy
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)
Wells, John


Rathbone, Tim
Sproat, Iain
Welsh, Andrew


Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
Stainton, Keith
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Reid, George
Stanbrook, Ivor
Wiggin, Jerry


Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)
Stanley, John
Wilson. Gordon (Dundee E)


Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)
Winterton, Nicholas


Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Younger, Hon George


Ridsdale, Julian
Stonehouse, Rt Hon John



Rifkind, Malcolm
Stradling Thomas, J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Rippon, Rt. Hon Geoffrey
Tapsell, Peter
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)
Mr. James Lester.


Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)





NOES


NIL



TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mrs. Winifred Ewing and




Mr. Dafydd Wigley.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Adjourned at twelve minutes past Ten o'clock.